During my recent time in the Arctic I was primarily focused on wildlife photography – specifically Polar Bears, Arctic Fox, Walrus and sea birds. My photograph of the month for August of the large female Polar bear strolling on the pack ice under the midnight sun is one of my favourite wildlife images from these recent trips. I did however, also shoot landscape images and one of my favourites and my photograph of the month for September is this image I titled ‘Top of the World’. Photographed from the crows nest of the M.S Origo as we cruised slowly north into the pack ice around 80º North of Svalbard. I used a Sigma 15mm Fish Eye lens for a super wide angle of view and to create a feeling of curvature of the earth. I feel that this photograph captures the essence for me of what it is like to be on board ship high in the Arctic – a truly incredible experience.
I am currently working on a full report of my trips in the Arctic this year and I hope to have them finished and online in the next week or so.
Category: Arctic
Live-Books Ambassador
A couple of months ago, whilst I was in Iceland on my summer photography workshop I was contacted by liveBooks and asked if I would be interested in joining their new Ambassador program. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with liveBooks, this USA based company specialises custom designed and pre-designed website templates for photographers. They are widely regarded by many as the industry standard for portfolio websites for professional photographers around the world and it is with great pleasure I join their Ambassador program. My own liveBooks website can be seen at www.jholko.com. Professional photographers need to stand out from the crowd and liveBooks have had a major hand in helping me grow my own business. I have been a liveBooks customer for more than eight years now (I was actually the first Australian photographer to sign up) and during this time have been continually developing and updating my website and blog. I have seen the company change hands and continue to grow with both new template and custom options (My own site at www.jholko.com now has quite a lot of custom flash programming for the workshop section of my website) as well as additional offerings such as Blogs and Video pages. During this time I have also seen many other prominent photographers choose liveBooks as their website of choice – both for the clean slick look and for the user friendly back end for managing images. One of the key factors that originally drew me to liveBooks was the time-saving back end support they offer. My time is very limited when it comes to allocating time for website maintenance and anything that saves me time and effort is a major plus. There are some very well known names amongst liveBooks list of clientele and if you are considering a move to a new web design or in setting up your first photography website it is well worth checking out their list of clients, example websites as well as their extensive range of template websites and custom designs.
Being an Ambassador for a company that has lead and continues to lead the industry in photography websites for photographers is an honour and I am very much looking forward to working with the team at liveBooks on some new projects over the coming year. I have several personal projects I am currently working on at present including a book on Polar and Sub Polar Photography, as well as an exciting project I will undertake in Iceland late next March (more to come on this soon). liveBooks will be assisting me with making these projects a reality and I am looking forward very much to the release of these projects.
Edit – The observant amongst you may have noticed that I have been a little slack of late in updating my photo of the month here on my blog. I did have the best intentions to update the photo of the month whilst I was in the Arctic but the little down time I did have between workshops and expeditions was spent catching up on email correspondence. This photograph of a large female Polar Bear is my photograph of the month for August (Yes – September is coming soon!) and was taken at approximately 80º North of Svalbard at the edge of the pack ice around midnight. We were fortunate to come across this bear on a fresh seal kill and we spent a couple of hours making photographs of this incredible animal. This particular image was shot with the Canon EOS 1DX and the new Canon 200-400mm F4L IS lens with inbuilt 1.4 Teleconverter and was actually shot through the open porthole of my cabin window on M.S Origo. M.S Origo is a wonderful ship for polar photography – with operable portholes that are only 60cm above the pack ice it provides the perfect vantage point for photographing these incredible animals. You can see a higher resolution version of this photograph on my Live-Books website at www.jholko.com
By way of full disclosure: I have always paid for all my liveBooks services out my own hard earned money – that includes my original website design, blog design and yearly hosting costs, plus all the custom work I have engaged them to complete. As an Ambassador I am entitled to a number of benefits with liveBooks that I negotiate on an as needs basis.
Gura Gear Monarch: Iceland, Svalbard and Greenland
It has been just over a week since I returned from two months photography in Iceland, Svalbard and Greenland and I am still very much catching up on sleep and recovering from jet lag. After two months in the Arctic with no real darkness under the midnight sun it is taking me some time to readjust my body clock to regular working hours. The high Arctic is an incredible place in summer for photography, but the continual sunlight and lack of darkness takes its toll in terms of trying to sleep between zodiac and shore landings.
If you a regular reader of my blog you will know that I took the Gura Gear Monarch Bataflae 32L with me to Iceland, Svalbard and Greenland as my primary camera bag for this two month period. At its most northerly position the Monarch and I reached approximately 81º North in the pack ice above Svalbard where we had some incredible encounters and experiences with Polar Bears hunting on the pack ice. Photographing Polar Bears hunting seals on the pack ice rates as one of the most incredible photographic experiences I have been fortunate to have and I am looking forward to sharing many of the photographs I made during my time in Svalbard over the coming weeks and months. I will also have more to say in future posts about the incredible landscape to be found in Greenland – A country of truly extraordinary geology.
During the two months I was in Iceland, Svalbard and Greenland I made more than 18,000 photographs and at present am still sorting, key wording and editing them down to a more manageable number. I have done a quick pass through the photographs and have uploaded a few of my initial favourites to my primary portfolio website at www.jholko.com A higher resolution version of this photograph of a large female Polar Bear staring into her reflection at the edge of the pack ice can be seen on my website in the Svalbard Portfolio.
The Monarch is now winging its way back to Gura Gear headquarters in the United States in preparation for its next journey and adventure having now travelled to Kenya in Africa with Andy Biggs and Iceland, Svalbard and Greenland with myself. Be sure to keep an eye on the Gura Gear website for future updates on its whereabouts as it makes its way around the globe with other pro photographers to some of the world’s most amazing photographic locations.
Boarding Polar Pioneer in Svalbard – Destination Iceland
This will be my last blog post for the next few weeks as I am about to board Polar Pioneer in Longyearbyen with my friend Daniel Bergmann and spend the next two weeks cruising Arctic waters in search of Polar Bears and dramatic Arctic landscapes. We will sail up the coast of Svalbard before heading for Greenland where we will cruise the coast before making our way to Iceland. I have been looking forward to this and the subsequent return expedition for more than a year now and it feels very good to finally be getting underway. I am packing Canon’s new 200-400mm F4L IS lens with inbuilt 1.4 Teleconverter specifically for this trip and am eager to begin shooting with it. The Svalbard archipelago is a spectacular location and I feel confident this trip will produce some great images. As a small teaser Daniel and I just completed ten days shooting Polar Bears in the pack ice – images to follow soon. See you in a couple of weeks.
Atomic Batteries to Power…. Turbines to Speed…..See you in Iceland and the Arctic
Batteries are charged and bags are packed and it is now time to begin the long trek from Australia to Iceland – this time via Dubai and Frankfurt. I never look forward to these long haul international flights; but by focusing on the destination and the exciting times ahead with those on the workshop the time always seems to go relatively quickly. I hope to post semi-regular updates and images to my blog as time allows during our Iceland trip. Iceland in summer is a somewhat punishing schedule when you are chasing the midnight sun and there often just isn’t enough time (or energy) to devote to processing and posting on the road. Nevertheless I am leaving with the best intentions of posting as often as possible. I will also be posting a few iPhone images to Facebook and Google + throughout our travels. You should also be able to track the Gura Gear Monarch Bataflae 32L as it makes it way through Iceland. The Monarch has already travelled with Andy Biggs to Kenya and after its travels through Iceland and the Arctic it will return to Gura Gear Headquarters ready for the next photographer. See you in Iceland…
Please note if you are trying to contact me via email or phone over the next two months it may take me a little while to get back to you. Iceland has excellent internet access, but once Daniel and I complete our summer workshop and head for the Arctic we will have no internet access for several weeks at a time. I will get back to you as soon as I get a chance to check and respond to my email between voyages.
www.WILDNATUREPHOTOTRAVEL.com 