We are currently in the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone on day three of our Winter Workshop to this amazing National Park. It has been unseasonably warm here in Yellowstone the past few days (actually, according to the locals it has been unseasonably warm for some time now) with temperatures hovering in the mid to high 40’s (Fahrenheit) during the day and really only dipping below 32 (Fahrenheit) during the night. There isn’t much snow around in the Lamar at present which has made access easy, but has somewhat limited our photographic opportunities to date. My own hopes of heavy snowfall to help isolate and add context to the animals in this area have not yet been realised. The weather is supposed to turn cold in the next two days with forecast snowfall in Yellowstone and we are hopeful this will add that missing magic element that brings photographs from this region to life.
We have had some good wildlife encounters in the first few days with the real highlight for me being a pair of wonderful Bald Eagles that we spent around an hour photographing by the side of the road. We were fortunate to stumble across the two eagles perched in trees deep in a canyon which put us at almost eye level by the roadside. 
After a sunrise shoot tomorrow in the Lamar Valley we will pack up and head toward Old Faithful and spend several days exploring and photographing in this area. There have been reports of Bobcat activity along the Madison River and I am keen to see if we can find and photograph one of these elusive cats in the wild.
We will sail across the Bransfield Strait to Antarctic Sound on our journey toward the Weddell Sea. Antarctic Sound is home to literally monolothic tabular icebergs that break off the Antarctic ice shelf and float up out of the Weddell Sea. There are incredible photographic opportunities in this area and we will stop to take advantage of spectacular tabular icebergs as we encounter them. We then plan to travel down the east side of the peninsula as deeply as we can penetrate into the sea ice.
Yellowstone in Winter is only my first stop during my time away from home and at the conclusion of this trip I will be travelling directly to Iceland for my annual 
In the Falklands we visited West Point Island and New Island where we photographed majestic Black Browed Albatross and Rock Hopper Penguins. Rock Hopper Penguins are the rock stars of the penguin world and are extremely photogenic with their wild hair and cool looks. We were fortunate to have some fabulous light and incredible access in the Falklands and were able to photograph nesting Black Browed Albatross up close. Some of us were also fortunate to see and photograph the very rare Striated Kara Kara. Although I did manage to grab a couple of snaps of this rare raptor for documentary purposes the images themselves are more record photographs and not considered compositions. Nevertheless it was a real thrill to see and photograph this rare bird of prey.
We also stopped in Stanley, the capital of the Falklands where we refuelled on coffee and took in some local sights. Keen to make our way to South Georgia our stay in the Falklands was brief and we were soon underway for three days sailing to South Georgia Island.
South Georgia island is strictly controlled in terms of number of visitors permitted on the island, where they are allowed to land and the hours they can be ashore. The purpose of these restrictions is to keep South Georgia as pristine as possible and to give wildlife a chance to rest away from the disturbance of human visitation. As such it is not permitted to land in South Georgia before 4am and you must depart by no later than 10pm. In order to take advantage of the best light possible we frequently commenced our zodiac operations at 4am so that we could not only maximise our time ashore but also ensure we experienced the best of the light available. These long hours usually enabled us three landings per day which meant we could squeeze in a great amount of photography during our time in this amazing location.
One of the greatest attractions in South Georgia are the majestic King Penguins. These elegant birds are the Kings of South Georgia and can be found by the tens of thousands at Salisbury Plain, Gold Harbor and Saint Andrews – all of which we visited during this expedition. Larger than the Gentoo, Chinstrap, Rockhopper and Macaroon they are also the most colourful and to my mind at least, the most elegant and photogenic.
We also visited Little Moltke harbour, Hercules and the Drygalski fjord in South Georgia. All of these offered incredible landscapes and wildlife opportunities. I hope to share more photographs from these locations over the coming weeks and months.
Our approach from South Georgia to Antarctica presented us with nearly 50 knots of howling wind which prevented us from landing at Deception Island. However, we were able to land briefly at the historic Point Wild in rising Catabolic winds. This is the first time I have been able to actually place a foot on rock at this location having been blown out on all other attempts. Point Wild is home to a colony of Chinstrap penguins and was the location where Antarctic explorers huddled for three months before rescue.
During our time in Antarctica our most southerly point was the breathtaking Lemaire Channel which we cruised through during a magnificent polar sunset. The Lemaire channel is always a dicey bet this early in the season but with the experience of our Russian Captain we were able to navigate the ice strewn waters and experience one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever witnessed in polar waters.
We also explored Neko Harbour, Paradise Bay, Cierva Cove and more. We cruised on zodiacs amongst spectacular icebergs as well as landing and exploring on foot. We were regularly greeted during our landings by our comedic friends the Gentoo penguins.
There were some fantastic photographs that resulted from this expedition by many of the photographers who participated. Personally, I shot over 7,500 images during the course of the expedition and as is usual it will take me many months to mine the jewels from this expedition. For now the photographs in this report are just a few of my initial favourites. During the course of the expedition the ships crew prepare a report of the previous days activities as well as what to expect for the coming day. You can download the daily trip reports as a 
We also had a videographer aboard to document our expedition and I hope to share the video from this expedition in a few months once all of the editing and post production work is complete.
www.WILDNATUREPHOTOTRAVEL.com 