A few days ago I wrapped up the South Georgia and Falkland Islands 2015 expeditions. Both of these expeditions were a resounding success with some incredible light and weather (my sincere thanks to all who participated and to my good friends and co-leaders Ole and Roy). I think we may actually have set a record for the number of shore landings in South Georgia during our time in this area and we certainly set a record for the number of incredible sunrises in a row. We were blessed with some really calm weather and stunning light in the early morning hours of our photographic shoots. Whilst I would have preferred it to be snowing more often (my favourite conditions for shooting) the weather was nevertheless ideal for the expedition. I will have more to say about both these trips when I return to Australia with full trip reports after Christmas.

Currently I am still in Punta Arenas in South America where bad weather and a huge storm over the South Pole have indefinately delayed my flight down to Union Glacier and the scouting trip to the Emperor penguins. Whilst it seriously sucks to be delayed from this trip, it has given me an opportunity to catch up on some of the back log of email I have accumulated whilst in South Georgia and the Falkland Islands (There is some limited internet access in the Falklands – but at ten GBP per hour for snail speed its far from efficient). I am now waiting on the next MET weather report from Union Glacier around eight pm local time tonight to see if its going to be possible to fly tonight or very early tomorrow morning – fingers crossed. In the meantime I received the exciting news that a number of my photographs have been selected as finalist images in both the 2015 Travel Photographer of the Year competition and the 2015 Outdoor Photographer of the Year Award. This is the fourth year in a row I have made the finals in both of these competitions (I have also previously won outright categories in both competitions). It is a huge honour to have had my work selected with such consistency and I am thrilled to be in the finals yet again. I cannot share which images are in the finals at present; but will do so as soon as the winners are announced. My congratulations also to the other finalists.

I am continually inspired to enter the Travel Photographer of the Year competition as it is one of the few photographic competitions remaining today that still judge the ‘print’ rather than a compressed jpeg. I wrote a couple of years ago of my disillusionment with so many of the photography competitions that make their judgements solely on a compressed jpeg file. The craft of producing a beautiful fine art print is one of the most enjoyable aspects of photography for me and is how I prefer to have my work viewed and judged. To this end, I am looking forward to processing and printing some of the photographs I made this year in both South Georgia and the Falklands when I return Australia at Christmas. In the meantime, please enjoy this image of a Southern Giant Petrel taking flight during a brief snow shower.