This is a shot from far away showing the from of the ice cover (ice Pack) on an Island of Svalbard. This is massive and goes all the way to the horizon. Look closely (click to enlarge) and see all the waterfalls coming off of the ice. Quite an amazing experience to see this.
When we traveled into the ice pack at 82.34 degrees last week we experienced a lot of polar bears. It is so hard to believe in the desolate environment there was so much life. Here’s a shot of one of the polar bears we encountered as it jumps from one ice berg to another. And, just to be clear this is ice pack ice that has broken up and is not an ice berg broken off of a glacier. These bears roam the ice pack hunting for seals. They jump, walk or swim to get where they need to go.
The inventor of Photoshop Thomas Knoll sat down with Micahel Reichmann and me during our recent Kimberley trip in Australia. The interview is now live on Luminous Landscape. Learn about the history of Photoshop as well as insight into the new Adobe subscription model.
Sometimes you are at the right spot at the right time. This was one of those cases. A week ago while cruising around in front of a glacier we could see a lot of calving going on. This is when chucks of ice break off of a glacier and form icebergs. It sounds like thunder. It causes giant splashes and huge wave. The trick is predicting where it might happen and being ready. Luck was with me as I caught this giant calving at the right moment. The motor drive was purring at 5 frames a second. I love this shot as you can see the giant ice chucks breaking off as well as hundreds of birds that took flight when it happened. Click on the image and look at the large version. CLICK on the image to see larger version Click again to see even bigger.
What amazes me about both Polar regions is the amount of wildlife that lives there. In the Arctic we ran across walruses quite often. One of them even sunk one of our beached Zodiacs. These are animals that are giants. Best known for the tusks. This shot was a lucky one for me as I caught it right after it raised its head from the water. I love the water dripping off the tusks. Shot with A Nikon D7100 and 80-400 lens which turned out to be the ideal set up for this kind of shooting.
Arriving at this location we faced a gigantic and very long glacier or ice wall. It is actually part of the permanent ice pack on Svalbard. zThere must have been a hundred waterfalls flowing from this place. This one image is showing a waterfall of about 50 feet coming out of a glacier as water carves it way through the glaciers. Some of the other waterfalls come of the top. I have pictures of those too so you’ll see them somewhere along the way. Pretty amazing to see all of this.
I am now back in Svalbard, Norway after 10 days at sea. No internet, email or cell phones. Lots of amazing things. I traveled to latitude 82.34 degrees on the MV Quest exploring the Arctic. I have come back with an amazing set of images and the above shot is the first of many that will grace my blog. One of the biggest experiences was going farther north in our ship than has ever been done before. This is because the ice pack is shrinking. You read all about it and yes when you are there you can see things are changing very rapidly. This image today symbolizes a lot of what I see happening. It’s putting the Polar Bear on the edge. They have no connection to land as the ice pack has moved so far north. Here is a bear literally at the edge of the ice pack. I think it sums it up very well. I’ll have more images over the coming days and weeks.
Well I am off on another adventure. This time I’ll be starting in Salvbard, Norway and shooting landscapes, wildlife and hopefully Polar Bears.
This adventure Starts on August 22nd and I’ll be back home September 5th. For the most part I’ll be out of Internet coverage and cell phone coverage, Most likely I’ll have email, cell phone withdrawal issues and hopefully this can be treated with some good therapy on board the shipI’ll be on. I should come back with lots of good photos. A few days after my return I head to the italian side of the Swiss Alps for the Dolomites PODAS workshop. Should have internet there though so I should be able to post images.
Stay Tuned for more. I’ll soon be announcing a whole series of Photo Workshops around the world in 2014.
On the way to the ball game in Indianapolis last week I saw this shot of a sculpture with the new Marriott hotel behind it. I lined it up in the viewfinder and shot. I like the contrasting colors and use of space. I will definitely go back and spend a bit more time with this view.
On my trip to Scotland a year ago I shot many great landscapes. I also with my friend Steve Gosling found a fisherman’s storage shed. It was a work of art and we spent a lot of time shooting it. This was from the side of building and is kind of an abstract of one of my favorite subjects RUST. You’ll see more from this series soon.