Biography[edit]

Born as John Hiller in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he changed his name to Lejaren à Hiller when he moved from New York City. He studied painting and illustration at the Chicago Art Institute and travelled to Paris where he found work in a number of studios. By the early 1900s his attention turned to photography and he was widely regarded as the "creator of American photographic illustration".^[1]

Hiller was known for dramatically staged tableaux. He would spend considerable time and effort in arranging the set and models, while an assistant took the photograph, making Hiller's contribution more directorial than photographic. He was more interested in the final result than the means used to achieve it and is remembered for saying:

If a man wants to strangle his wife and throw her in the kitchen sink, let him do it any way he wants to. If he's doing it awkwardly, or not the way I'd do it, all right -- it's a good job so long as he gets her into the sink, completely strangled.^[2]

From 1927-50 Hiller was commissioned by Davis & Geck to produce the prints for a series of historic advertisements entitled “Sutures in Ancient Surgery,” and published in 1944 as “Surgery through the Ages”. Hiller used elaborate costumes, dramatic backdrops and lighting, and had half-clad models posing as patients. The images depicted a broad range from mediaeval and Aztec surgeons, to surgeons from ancient Egypt and India. The collection was widely acclaimed, and in 1937 won the Edward Bok Award for advertising. The originals of this series were donated to the Art Institute of Chicago.^[3]

Hiller also created a series of photographic posters for the US Armed Forces during World War II.

His son, also named Lejaren Hiller (1924 – 1994), was a chemist of psychedelic drugs such as mescaline and celebrated music composer who pioneered the use of computers in composing.

OTHER DETAILS:  The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Magnetic North Pole.

The North Pole is by definition the northernmost point on the Earth, lying antipodally to the South Pole. It defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there, so its longitude can be defined as any degree value. No time zone has been assigned to the North Pole, so any time can be used as the local time. Along tight latitude circles, counterclockwise is east and clockwise is west. The North Pole is at the center of the Northern Hemisphere. The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km (430 mi) away, though some perhaps semi-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, which is located 817 km (508 mi) from the Pole.

While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at 4,261 m (13,980 ft) by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007^[1] and at 4,087 m (13,409 ft) by USS Nautilus in 1958.^[2][3] This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, a group of Russians have also annually established a private base, Barneo, close to the Pole. This operates for a few weeks during early spring. Studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016^[4][5] to the late 21st century or later.

Attempts to reach the North Pole began in the late 19th century, with the record for "Farthest North" being surpassed on numerous occasions. The first undisputed expedition to reach the North Pole was that of the airship Norge, which overflew the area in 1926 with 16 men on board, including expedition leader Roald Amundsen. Three prior expeditions – led by Frederick Cook (1908, land), Robert Peary (1909, land) and Richard E. Byrd (1926, aerial) – were once also accepted as having reached the Pole. However, in each case later analysis of expedition data has cast doubt upon the accuracy of their claims. The first confirmed overland expedition to reach the North Pole was in 1968 by Ralph Plaisted, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean-Luc Bombardier, using snowmobiles and with air support.^[6]