Jewels of the Arctic 2014 Expedition Report

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In late August 2014 I led a ship based polar photography expedition from Isafjord in the north of Iceland to the remote east coast of Greenland and west coast of Svalbard – The Jewels of the Arctic. During this expedition we sailed across the Denmark Strait from Iceland and explored and photographed the wild and remote fjords of Greenland and stunning glacial landscapes of Svalbard. We saw and photographed giant icebergs, precipitous mountains that plunge hundreds of metres into the sea, majestic wildlife and much more. We encountered Arctic pack ice and spent many hours photographing from ship, shore and zodiac under the midnight Arctic sun. Greenland IcebergThis trip report is going to be a little different to those I have written up in the past. Rather than recount just the highlights and main experiences I am instead going to post the day-by-day reports that are handed out to participants at the end of each day. At the conclusion of every day of the expedition the staff and crew compile a report of our activities for the day as well as our upcoming plans for the following day. The intention of these daily reports is not only to keep everyone on the expedition up to date but also to provide a record at the end of trip for participants to take home. These reports give a wonderful insight into ship board life and the many experiences over the course of the expedition. They cover a lot more than just the photography (in fact they are not really meant to be photography based, and are focused on life aboard ship and in the Arctic) and include information about the ships position, weather, wildlife encounters, our daily itinerary and even a few Russian language tips in good faith to our crew. The Trip Daily Reports can be downloaded as a complete PDF file HERE.

FracturedAs with all polar expeditions we encountered a variety of weather that included a remarkably calm and flat Denmark Strait and Greenland sea crossing. Both of these stretches of water are quite notorious and can be as rough as the Drake Passage (that thin stretch of water between South America and Antarctica). Thankfully we were fortunate to experience calm seas for the duration of our expedition, which really maximised our photography – both on ship and on zodiac. I lost count of the number of zodiac excursions during the fourteen days we were in the Arctic but they included many, many hours cruising amongst gigantic icebergs and dramatic mountain scenery.

Greenland DawnI am still sorting through and editing the many thousands of photographs I made during this expedition. These few  images I have had the time to process since returning are just a small sample of the sort of incredible scenery we encountered during our two weeks in Greenland and Svalbard. The Organ Pipes in GreenlandGreenland in particular is a landscape photographers paradise and remains for me one of the most geologically amazing locations I have ever visited. No where else have I ever seen such amazing and precipitous mountain formations or such incredible glacial scaring across the face of the landscape. The fjords are lined with magnificent orange and yellow mountains  that are a wonderful counterpoint to the gigantic icebergs that drift slowly through the fjords. As the glaciers continue to thin and recede the newly uncovered landscape offers amazingly varied opportunities for photography. The glaciology of the Arctic is truly something to behold and even though the glaciers are sadly in full retreat at an incredibly alarming rate the opportunities for photography remain boundless. The high Arctic is an incredibly special place to visit and photograph and it was as always an absolute privilege and pleasure to share it with all aboard our ship.

Ice and GlacierI am looking forward to returning next year to Svalbard to lead two dedicated expeditions to photograph Polar Bears north of Svalbard at the edge of the permanent pack ice. These two expeditions will be using much smaller twelve person ships which will enable us to get down to eye level with wild Polar Bears. Both of these expeditions are already sold out, but if you would like to be amongst the first to be notified when the 2016 trips are open for bookings please just drop me an email.

Untitled Film Works to Film Kingdom of the Ice Bear Expedition

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Last year I commissioned Untitled Film Works to travel with me to the Arctic to create a short movie of what it was like to be on a photographic expedition in Greenland and Svalbard with a group of dedicated and passionate photographers (In case you missed it you can watch it HERE). The resulting movie was released early this year and spread quickly across the internet. It was a huge amount of fun and we received a large amount of email corresponedence complimenting us on the video. Ultimately, it achieved what I hoped it would – it gave an insight into what it was like to travel on a dedicated polar photography expedition in the Arctic.

Now, I am very excited to announce and share that Untitled Film Works have been commissioned for a second movie and will accompany myself, Daniel Bergmann and ten keen and passionate photographers on our Kingdom of the Ice Bear Expedition north of Svalbard in August next year. During this expedition we plan to photograph and film wild Polar Bears living and hunting in their natural environment on the permanent pack ice under the spectacular midnight sun. We also hope to film many other Arctic species including Walrus, Arctic Fox, Whales and more. We will produce a second short movie and then release it toward the end of next year. The movie will be made freely available as before.Polar Bear

The movie will be shot on a combination of a 6K RED Epic Dragon Cinema Camera as well as several Canon EOS 1DC Cinema cameras. It is my hope that this movie will help raise awareness for not only global warming, but also more specificially, the plight of the Polar Bear as the sea ice continues to thin under its feet. KingdomoftheIceBear2015

Our Kingdom of the Ice Bear Expedition is now almost sold out (only one place remaining). If you are interested in joining us or have any questions about the expedition please just drop me an email.

Apple Thunderbolt Upgrade with Legacy Firewire Computers

Posted in Equipment, News and Updates, Uncategorized6 Comments

I ran into quite a nasty little ‘gotcha’ experience with the upgrade path from Firewire to Thunderbolt last night that I think is worth sharing for anyone who might be considering purchasing a new Thunderbolt device and owns and uses legacy Mac computers with Firewire800 ports.

In my studio I am currently running an 8-core 2010 ‘Big Iron’ Mac Pro Server as my main photography editing and printing machine. It has 64 Gigabytes of RAM and is loaded up with a super quick OWC SSD Card as well as four internal hard drives in a RAID10 Array. Its a very quick machine and not really in need of an upgrade any time soon. I had also been running an external Drobo Pro with 8 x 1TB drives in it connected via Firewire800. The sole purpose of the Drobo was a daily back-up of the internal Mac Pro RAID10 Array. Its the old belt suspenders and a piece of string and this set-up has worked well now for years.

In preparation for a new Thunderbolt Mac Pro next year (which has no firewire800 ports) I purchased one of the new Promise Pegasus2 R4 Thunderbolt2 Disk Attached Storage (DAS) Chassis and loaded it up with 4 Western Digital Red Hard Drives in a RAID10.  I also purchased a Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter from Apple to enable me to connect the new Promise DAS directly to the Mac Pro’s Firewire800 port. And that is where I hit a major roadblock.

As it turns out the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire800 adapter is a one way adapter only. That is, you can connect it to the Thunderbolt port of a new Thunderbolt equipped Apple Mac and use it to connect to a legacy Firewire800 device (like a hard drive). However, you cannot connect a Thunderbolt device (such as the Promise Pegasus2 R4) to a Firewire800 Apple Mac with this adapter. It will not work. The reason it will not work is the adapter is designed to create a Thunderbolt port for a non-Thunderbolt equipped Firewire device. It cannot create a Firewire port for a Thunderbolt device and thats a very important distinction.

According to the description on Apple’s website:ThunderboltNow it does say ‘Connect your Thunderbolt equipped Mac to a Firewire device’. I just assumed (incorrectly) that you could therefore connect a Thunderbolt device to a Firewire equipped Mac; which is not the case. It is a fairly easy assumption to make as the text does not say it cannot be done and adapters usually work both ways.

This left me in some what of a quandary as I really did not want to shell out more than six thousand dollars for the new Mac Pro just yet. I simply wanted to bed in the new Thunderbolt storage array so that when I did upgrade to the new Mac Pro at some stage next year I was ready to go with Thunderbolt storage that was tested and bedded down. What to do?

The good news is that there is a solution; although it is not very elegant and does require you to own some sort of Thunderbolt equipped Mac in addition to your Firewire equipped Mac. Thankfully I have a new MacBook Pro that has several Thunderbolt ports that I use when travelling. Step one is to connect the Thunderbolt storage device (in my case the Promise Pegasus2 R4) to the Thunderbolt equipped Mac with a standard Thunderbolt cable. Step two is to connect the Thunderbolt equipped Mac to the Firewire equipped Mac and start the Firewire equipped Mac in ‘Target Disk Mode’. In order to do this you will need a Firewire 800 cable and a Firewire to Thunderbolt Adapter available from the Apple store. Once started in Target Disk Mode the Firewire800 equipped Mac Pro will then show up as a mounted disk on the Thunderbolt equipped Mac Pro and you can then copy the files from the Firewire equipped Mac Pro to the Thunderbolt Pegasus2 DAS. It is not the cleanest solution, but it works and it is quite fast (Firewire800 speed is the limitation).

Fjallabak Nature Reserve – Iceland

Posted in Iceland, Landscape Photographs, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography2 Comments

One of the highland areas we travelled through on the two recent Ultimate Iceland Workshops I completed in August this year was the Fjallabak Nature Reserve. This incredible nature reserve is home to some of the most stunning scenery, mountains and rivers found in Iceland. Many of the best locations and viewpoints are not even sign posted and are only found through exploration of the area. The particular vantage point was just off the side of the road. We pulled off at this location and decided to wait for sunset – several hours early we set up a quick temporary camp with the evening meal, a few drinks, deck chairs and settled back to watch the magic unfold. I took numerous different compositions and frames at this location, but it is this one with the evening light on the distant mountain that I most enjoy.Fjallabak

Iceland – Bárðarbunga Volcano Update

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For the last three weeks I have been agonising over the decision of wether to fly back to Iceland to photograph the volcano that is currently erupting north of the Vatnajökull ice-cap, before I head south to South Georgia Island and Antarctica. The volcanic fissure eruption in Holuhraun (north of Vatnajökull) has been going on now for more than a month. Unfortunately this eruption started only a few days after I had to leave Iceland to lead my Greenland expedition (trip report coming soon). I had camped out with my friend and fellow photographer Antony in the hopes we would be in the ideal location when the eruption began; but as luck would have it we missed it by just a few days – ce la vie.

Currently the area around the eruption site is closed to all ground traffic due to significant venting of poisonous gas and it is therefore impossible to get anywhere near the fissure site and the lava being ejected. Just to give some insight into the scale of this eruption – to date the amount of magma ejected exceeds 50 square kilometres and it is showing no signs of slowing down. All of the surrounding roads are closed due to both the risk of poisonous gas as well as possible flooding from the nearby Bárðarbunga volcano should it also erupt. Things are further complicated by the early arrival of winter snowfall in the north and very high winds and Autumn storms. Any photography would be restricted to aerials only (and that is assuming a viable weather window) and whilst it would be better than nothing it is not my preference to photograph an eruption from the air. I would much prefer to be on terra-firma and to be able to use slow shutter speeds for more creative imagery.

Ultimately, it would be a huge gamble at this point that would cost many thousands of dollars including planes and helicopters. The probability for failure is extremely high for any sort of image making other than documentary (and even that is currently in doubt). All of this is further complicated by expedition commitments I have in South Georgia and Antarctica in less than three weeks time. Which is why I have had to make the very hard decision this evening not to fly to Iceland tomorrow for this volcanic event. This decision was doubly difficult for me as I also missed the Eyjafjallajökull eruption by days and have been waiting for the next eruption with the intention of jumping on the next plane to Iceland to photograph it. For now I am going to have to enjoy the  live web cam on the fissure eruption which can be viewed HERE.WebCam ImageThe final complication is the Bárðarbunga volcano itself. This volcano resides under the Vatnajökull glacier and is the real danger and the big unknown at this point in time. At approximately ten times the size of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano it has incredibly destructive potential should it erupt. I want to emphasise this point – Bárðarbunga is a monumental Force of Nature the likes of which we have not witnessed in recent times. The sheer volume of ash that will be ejected into the atmosphere should it explosively erupt is very likely to cause significant airline disruption for many months and significant fall-out across the Northern Hempisphere. The sheer destructive potential of this volcano should not be in any way be underestimated. At this point in time the glacier is subsiding over Bárðarbunga which points to the possibility of an eruption in the near future. As to exactly when this may occur is an unknown at this point. Earthquakes are ongoing in the area which is being heavily monitored.

The best way to stay up-to-date with the current news is to follow the Icelandic meteorological site www.vedur.is. Scientists are reporting that Iceland has entered a state of increased volcanic activity. There is therefore a high likelihood that the eruption will still be ongoing when I head to Iceland for my annual winter workshop in February next year. Should that be the case we will certainly be taking advantage of any weather window and access to photograph it. Until then the volcano is best enjoyed from the safety of the office and the webcam.