Untitled Film Works to Film Kingdom of the Ice Bear Expedition

Posted in Arctic, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Video, Wildlife Photographs, Workshops and ExpeditionsLeave a comment

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.

Canon See Impossible – Countdown Announcement

Posted in Equipment, Media5 Comments

If you logged on to the internet this morning / evening you will have no doubt come across the ‘Canon See Impossible‘ countdown that is currently spreading like wildfire across the rumour websites. The somewhat cryptic teaser really does not provide much insight into what this announcement will be.  At the risk of going out on a limb I find it highly unlikely that this will be a new camera body announcement. The prose smacks to me of some sort of printer / media announcement. Possibly some sort of new product, tool or feature that helps get images from camera to print. The advert also appeared as full two-page spread in the New York Times so Canon has thrown some considerable marketing budget behind this announcement. The good news is the clock is ticking down and in less than twenty four hours the answer will be revealed. Edit – It is worth noting that this announcement appears confined to Canon USA. Nothing else to my knowledge in other countries. Any new High Mega Pixel announcement would almost certainly involve Canon Japan. Read into this what you will…Canon Impossible