Category: Photographs

Photographs

Polar Bears on the Edge – Heading for Extinction

Posted in Arctic, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography2 Comments

It isn’t often I get on board for a crowd funding project. Frankly there are so many of them these days that deserve support that its impossible to contribute to them all. However, the recent events in Svalbard with the senseless death of a young female Polar Bear (I photographed this bear only days earlier) combined with my own additional experience witnessing the decline of these magnificent animals in the wild puts this particular effort at the forefront of my thinking and efforts. I want to urge all of you to help save the Polar Bear and to take just a few moments out of your day to do so.

Morten Jørgensen, who is arguably the leading authority on Polar Bears, is about to release a new book to help save this incredible animal from extinction. The book “Polar Bears on the Edge” has taken two years to write and I believe this will probably be the most important book about polar bear conservation in many years. In fact, it may well be one of the last chances to help save the species.20150319032943-isbj_rn.vinkel.s_1200The book ‘Polar Bears on the Edge – Heading for Extinction while Management Fails’, will be available to the general public including the press towards the end of April this year. You can order an advance copy by contributing to the campaign. To help fund the message of the book out to as wide an audience as possible, Morten has launched a campaign to cover the costs of production and distribution. This fund raising is not for profit – it is for polar bears.

Please check it out at: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/polar-bears-on-the-edge I encourage and urge you to assist in whatever means you feel comfortable and able. To ensure polar bears have a future, we need to see a policy change in the Arctic. One way you can contribute to helping the polar bears is by donating to the campaign. But you can also contribute by spreading the word. You could forward this page to people around you, let people know through your mailing lists, through Facebook and Twitter etc, or embed the link to the campaign on your webpages. I encourage you wether you are a photographer or not to contribute to this campaign. Every little bit helps and with your support we can hopefully save this magnificent animal.
Polar Bear

Polar Bear Shot Dead in Svalbard because of the Ignorance of Tourists

Posted in Arctic, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Wildlife Photographs11 Comments

Today I am sharing a photograph I took less than a week ago in Svalbard whilst I was on a scouting trip to photograph Polar Bears in winter from snow mobile. I watched and photographed this magnificent Polar Bear play around this piece of blue ice against the backdrop of the glacier in Tempelfjorden in Svalbard for several hours only days ago. The teenage bear had been in the fjord for days and had been hunting seals at breathing holes along the edge of the frozen ice. I photographed the same bear two days before this image as it lay on a fresh seal kill under the polar winter sunset.

I was deeply saddened and moved to tears today to learn that this Polar Bear is now Dead. Shot dead because of the ignorance and arrogance of tourists who travelled to Svalbard to witness the Solar Eclipse. From what I have been able to piece together from the various news reports now popping up online it seems a tourist suffered minor injuries when the polar bear attacked the tent where he was sleeping. An area where the bear was known to be hunting and where these tourists irresponsibly set up their camp. Svalbard-RIPPolice spokesman Vidar Arnesen said the man was among a group of six that was on a combined ski and snow scooter trip on the remote islands more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of the Norwegian mainland. The group was camping north of the main town of Longyearbyen.

The man, Jakub Moravec, told local media he hoped to be out of the hospital later Thursday.

“Now I am fine. I have some scratches in the face, on one arm and on the back. But I feel fine,” he told the Svalbardposten newspaper.

Jakub Moravec I am glad you feel fine. You don’t deserve to feel fine. It is because of you and your friends ignorance and stupidity that this beautiful Polar Bear had to be killed. Tent camping in an area a Polar Bear is known to be currently in is not only incredibly stupid, but its incredibly ignorant. Shame on you. I hope the life of this bear that you and your friends caused the death of haunts you for a very long time.

Svalbard Arctic Winter Scouting Trip Complete

Posted in Arctic, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs2 Comments

Yesterday we arrived back in the small town of Longyearbyen via snow mobiles from our scouting trip to the wilderness in the north of Svalbard where we photographed Polar Bear, Reindeer and icy landscapes in the deep freeze of an Arctic Winter. This scouting trip ranks in the top five most amazing and extraodinary expeditions I have ever been fortunate to undertake – it was also the coldest. The mercury plummeted below -30º Celsius with wind chill on many occasions. Although it was cold (its the Arctic in Winter!) we had a mix of incredible light, landscape and wildlife in a deep winter scene that was a very special experience. Part of the problem in dealing with the cold during this test trip was that we were out in the elements for ten or more hours a day with no option to return to our hut to warm up. This meant donning lots of layers and being prepared to deal with really extreme temperatures for many hours. One of the few places you could actually get some warmth into your body when the cold seeped its way through the layers was from the heated handgrips on the snowmobiles and I was personally very pleased to have these available. Being able to operate the camera requires thin gloves and these offer little protection in this extreme environment. We were over two hundred kilometres from Longyearbyen in the remote northern part of Svalbard  which limited us to what we could take with us and the provisions already supplied at the hut. We travelled more than five hundred kilometres in total during the expedition.

During the expedition we encountered and photographed Polar Bears, Seals, Arctic Fox, as well as Reindeer and were able to make some very unique photographs of these animals in the Arctic Winter light. I will be sharing some of the photographs I made when I get a chance to process them on my return to Australia. As tempting as it is to process a few images on my macbook now, I really prefer to save this work for my studio editing machine where I have a much more tightly controlled colour managed environment.

I am going to stay in Longyearbyen for the next couple of days before I fly back to Iceland to continue my Arctic Fox project in the extreme north-east of Iceland. As it happens, there are several fox dens just outside of town in Longyearbyen and I want to check these out before I leave and potentially spend a day photographing the foxes if they are around. Once back in Iceland I am going to to drive up to Isafjord where I will take a charter boat up to the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve. This very remote part of Iceland is very rarely visited in winter and is only accessible by chartered boat (approximately four hours steam north of Isafjord) and there is no infrastructure (power, running water, roads etc.) in place in this wilderness so we have to take everything with us for the duration of the trip. It is a major undertaking to travel and photograph in Hornvik in winter requiring the co-ordination of not only a chartered boat, supplies, and emergency EPIRB, satellite communication equipment, but also special permission from the park ranger. I want to take a moment and thank my friends in Iceland who have helped make this all possible. Without their assistance in co-ordinating and arranging this expedition it simply would not have been possible. I spent a week or so last year in this area photographing Arctic Fox with their assistance from a snow blind and was able to get several images for my project that I was extremely happy with. I hope to get sufficient images from this expedition to complete the project. In the meantime I am going to enjoy a couple of days in Longyearbyen with hot water, electricity and a warm room. See you back in Iceland in a few days.

Arctic Fox Howl

March Photo of the Month Winner: Caroline Hind

Posted in Antarctica, Landscape Photographs, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography1 Comment

Congratulations to the third print winner ‘Caroline Hind’, for the photograph of the month for March 2015: ‘Epic Sense of Scale’

What Caroline said: That is a truly spectacular image! I’ve been to Antarctica only once, but it’s captured my heart and I know I’ll be back.An Epic Sense of Scale

Congratulations Caroline, you were the first, and your print will be sent to you when I return to Australia in early April.

Keep an eye out on my blog for the next print giveaway with the April photograph of the month. Remember the best way to get instant updates is to subscribe via email.

2015 March Photograph of the Month: Epic Sense of Scale

Posted in Antarctica, Landscape Photographs, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized21 Comments

The photograph of the month for March 2015 was shot during one of the last zodiac cruises on my 2013 Antarctica expedition. We were fortunate to come across an iceberg of truly monumental size near the entrance to Antarctic Sound. Whilst I have been fortunate to see and photograph icebergs even larger than this (and the biggest icebergs are measured in kilometres) this particular iceberg also had an incredible chasm, wonderful form and shape and beautifully chiselled features. Our expedition ship ‘Polar Pioneer’ pictured here is seventy two metres long and a full six decks high at the fly bridge.  This was actually one giant iceberg joined underneath the water.  Our ship could have easily fit through the chasm however such a venture would have been exceedingly dangerous. I admit though my mind was racing with the thought of a blast through this chasm in our zodiac! VPPY - Gold AwardDon’t forget! You can win a free 13″ x 19″ Win a Fine art Print of this photograph including shipping anywhere in the world. All you need do is to be the first to comment on this post on the home page with your thoughts on why you like this photograph or why you would like to own a print of the image and then share the post with your preferred social media outlet. Just keep in mind that due to my hectic travel schedule it may take me some time to make and post out each print so if you are the lucky winner for a given month I ask that you jut exercise a little patience and as soon as I am back in my studio in Australia and as soon as practical I will make the print and send it to you – free of charge. Each print will be made and personally signed by me with the same care and attention to detail I exercise on my large gallery prints. There will be a total of twelve prints to win throughout the calendar year. The first two prints of the year were won by Fred Jennings and Chris Roberts and their prints have now been delivered, framed by them and are hanging on their walls.

This particular print is one I hold quite close to my heart as it won a coveted Gold Award at both the 2014 VPPY Victorian Professional Photography Awards and also at the National APPA Australian Professional Photography Awards. It was one of my four portfolio photographs that won me the 2014 Australian Canon Science, Nature and Environment Photographer of the Year award.

Good luck and don’t forget in order to win the print you need to be the first to comment here on the home page on the March photograph of the Month for the 2015 calendar year with your thoughts on why you like the photograph or why you would like to own a print and to then share the post with your social media outlet of choice.