PixelatedImage Blog

Today Jeffrey Chapman and I are announcing two new photographic adventures for 2012. The first, in July, timed to coincide with the Naadam festival, is in Mongolia. The second is late November/early December, to Antarctica. More details are on the site HERE for Mongolia and HERE for Antarctica, and I am so excited about both.

Mongolia – July 6-16, 2012

The first, to Mongolia is a great itinerary. I was there in February a few years ago and since then, captivated by the landscape and the people (though not the food!), I’ve wanted to go back. In the past we’ve struggled to really communicate clearly on these, so this time I’m trying a different tack. This is not a workshop. This is a chance to go with two experienced photographers and travelers, to a place they have wanted to explore. We’ve done our homework, and we’ve picked the itinerary that we want to do. We’re inviting you to come with us, to explore with us, to have an adventure in places where there is sand, unusual food, potentially lumpy beds, and maybe even mosquitoes. There will be no 5-star hotels, though we’ve done our best to make sure we’re all safe, warm, healthy, and happy. There won’t even be lectures. What there will be is an organic travel experience to a new place with two photographers who want to discover a place, with cameras in hand, as it is. The group is small and we’ll be taking the first applicants, unless any of you seem completely insane, and then we’ll be skipping you and moving on.

My hope is to continue to travel with people who love new places and strange adventures, and to teach about this art we all love and spend so much of our time and energy on. To that end we’ll spend time each day in discussion about photographs themselves – not in image critiques, but discussions about the photographs themselves. And in between there will be times at meals, in vehicles, and while shooting, to ask questions, to explore this place and this art, together.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, and it isn’t for everyone, then we’d love you to join us. Who is this for? It’s for people who want to share an adventure and who love that adventure as much as the potential photographs. It’s for people who don’t mind a little sand in their teeth, don’t gag at the thought of different foods (I’m not talking about making you eat bugs), and can roll with changes in schedule. It’s for people who want to learn their craft in an organic, slow-burn kind of way. Who is not for? If you’ve done a bunch of photo-workshops, and want to be making photographs for 18 hours a day, we love you but you might be frustrated by our approach. We believe people are more creative when they slow down, watch the light, experience a place, and pursue better photographs not just more of them. Our approach is different.

Anyways, check out the itinerary, and if it appeals, drop us a line. But do it fast because these adventures usually sell out within the first two days, if not sooner.

Antarctica – November 29 – December 09, 2012

I went to Antarctica this December with Quark Expeditions and from the moment I entered Antarctic waters I was enchanted. I went expecting to shoot black and white photographs of a black and white world, and what I came back with was a body of work full of blues I didn’t know existed. Antarctica stunned me with its beauty and it’s not often that happens. So I came back and told Jeffrey we had to do this trip. We’ll be with Quark again, on a larger ship, but we’ve got our own Zodiac and lots of time to be together as a group and talk about photography, discuss images, and enjoy one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. Quark is a top-notch operation and I was impressed from start to finish. The ship was great, the staff was amazing, and Antarctica was an adventure from beginning to end.

Yes, the Drake Passage was rough. People (not many of them, mind you) fell out of chairs. Lots of people staggered around the boat like they were drunk. Some of them might have been. Many spent the crossing in their bunks waiting for the calm of the Antarctic waters. But I didn’t hear anyone say they had regrets. And I thought crossing the Drake was an appropriate price to pay for entry to a place so magical. We’ll spend time photographing from the ship, from the zodiacs, and from the shore. We’ll walk among penguins and seals and see icebergs in shades of blue you just didn’t think existed. And there will be plenty of time (we aren’t going anywhere else, you know) to learn from each other on the ship during the voyage. If you’ve ever wanted to see the frozen continent, or the 7th continent, this is an adventure you’ll never forget.

More details about the itinerary on the website. Feel free to ask Jeffrey questions. This one needs a quick sell-out in order to secure our small group on the boat, so if you want to join us, let us know fast. *This is not a traditional workshop. Please read the description of the Mongolia trip; it’ll help you understand what we’re doing.

For more information on Mongolia, check out the website HERE.
For more information on Antarctica, check out the website HERE.

Well, that’s a wrap. I’m sitting in Houston awaiting a flight to Toronto, then one more to Ottawa. I left Antarctica on Wednesday and with the Drake Passage and flights, it’s so far taken 4 days to get home. But what a trip! I hope I’ve already expressed on how much fun this trip was, how much I enjoyed being able to bring you along with me via the blog, and how grateful I am for your comments and encouragement. This trip was a working trip for me, a return to intentionally exploring and creating, and it blew the doors off my expectations. After all the travel I really had less than a week to work, but what a place in which to do that. Antarctica is something special, a place I already long to return to again and again.

Practically, I shot with two bodies most of the time. For all my talk about going light I eventually caved in and brought my 300/2.8 and 24mm tilt-shift lens. I didn’t take the tilt-shift out once, and I could have done just fine without the 300/2.8. I was much more interested in the wider landscapes, so the 16-35/4.0 was on one body all the time, and the 70-200/2.8 on the other. Penguins don’t run away, so proximity’s not an issue. I suppose had we seen many whales I’d have wanted the reach of a 300mm, but there are smaller 300mm lenses than the massive, and expensive 300/2.8. I might consider taking one of those next time. I could have used a tripod once or twice, but was glad to have left it behind.

The big “must haves” in Antarctica are a good supply of lens cloths, and an easy way to waterproof your gear. I saw alot of people with rain covers, but those do nothing to stop the rain, snow, and spray from spotting the front of the lens,which was my biggest struggle and rain covers drive me insane. If it’s raining so hard I need to protect my gear, it’s impossible to keep the front of a wide lens clean, so I don’t bother. I just brought a couple large OR (Outdoor Research) dry bags, clipped to my lifejacket, or shoved in my pockets when not in use. Simple and cheap and easy to cram a camera into when the waves got choppy and threw spray into the zodiac.

My biggest worry was that shooting beside so many photographers would either stifle my creativity or produce similar photographs, but it was amazing how much alone time I had to shoot, and how so many photographers created such different work. I’m coming home with a body of work I’m thrilled with, and am already making plans to go back. One of the big thrills was meeting so many of my readers and having a chance to share meals, shoot together, and explore this amazing piece of our planet together. Thanks for hanging out with me!

Two more images from the trip…

Gear is Good. Soup Is Better. Courtesy of John Paul Caponigro.

This much fun should be illegal. Antarctica, 2011

*I’ve put my complete packing list into the comments, so read down if you’re interested.

One last postcard from Antarctica. We’re on the Drake Passage now, and heading back to Ushuaia before I start the long journey home. What a trip this has been. Daily trips in the zodiacs, time spent on land with fearless penguins and seals, and more time to make photographs than I’ve had in a long time. I’ve got a selection of about 100 final images, from which I want to pull a body of work, perhaps 30 final photographs. Sadly, I’m saving most of those for another project, so it’ll be a while before you see them, but I hope it’ll be worth the wait when you do. I also plan to put together a small Blurb book of the trip. This is the first time in ages I’ve worked on output of a personal nature, instead of putting it out there immediately for consumption.

We saw a small pod of Orca, the Antarctic Killer Whale. Amazing that I lived in Vancouver for 15 years and had to come to the Antarctic to see my first Orca. No photographs to speak of, just the magic of seeing them out there in the mist.

Thanks so much for joining me on this journey, it’s been an incredible adventure, one I hope to repeat every year. I can’t imagine never coming back to this beauty. When I get home I go in for what I hope it the last surgery, and the last you’ll hear about my feet. Then I’m off to San Diego and the Napa Valley to spend my 40th birthday and Christmas. I’ll post something again when I’m home in a few days.

Today was a blast. We spent the morning in “the Iceberg Graveyard” and the afternoon on Petermann Island. The afternoon landing was incredible. Easily the most beautiful landing so far. I brought only my 300/2.8 lens with me, which turned out to be a mistake, but I made some fun penguin portraits before returning to the ship to swap my 300mm for a 16-35 lens and and do some landscapes. Here, because so many of you seem to like penguins as much as I do, are a couple more in the series I’m working on.

Petermann Island is the furthest point south on this adventure. We’re currently heading north towards the Drake Passage and while we hope to land again tomorrow, it’s all dependant on weather, which has not been in our favour. This is likely the last postcard you’ll get from me before I’m back home, and that might take a few days. I’ll do what I can to get one more postcard out before the journey is over. Thanks for joining me, it’s been really fun getting these out to you and reading your comments.

One quick postcard before leaving the Iceberg Graveyard in which we’ve spent the morning chasing ice and seals and dodging a blizzard. The seals were tough, but not for the usual reasons. Most of the time wildlife runs away or buggers off. Not here. Here they just don’t give a damn and it’s all you can do to get them to open their eyes or lift their heads. I came close to throwing snowballs at these seals, just to get their attention. I’m not proud of it, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. (Kidding about the snowball…mostly.)

We’ve been floating now for something like 5 days, but I haven’t looked at a calendar. Time here passes very differently, in part because the light just sticks around for so long, and in part because so much of this incredible landscape blends into each other after a while. So much beauty is almost overwhelming. I woke this morning to a cold morning, adrift in a sea of white ice, pulled the covers over my head and went back to bed. I’m still there waiting for the wake-up call and the motivation to pull on the wool and fleece and go find coffee. At the risk of oversaturating you with these vast landscapes, here’s another from a day or two ago. Click the image to see it a little larger.

Thanks so much for joining me on this adventure. I’ve read all the comments and emails, forgive me for not replying. Bandwidth and time are in short supply.

I’ll give you three guesses about January’s Desktop Wallpaper.

I’m on a boat, ice-breaking through the Lemaire Channel in Antarctica, the snow is blowing in huge flakes on high winds. Spent this afternoon on a zodiac, again, chasing light and ice. Amazing place. Came back to the boat and had a martini (possibly two) iced with the clearest ice – straight from the antarctic ocean – I’ve ever seen. And now it’s almost 9pm and we’re in a sea of ice. I’ve never been in such an infinite, serene, wild place. Anyways, here’s one more postcard, click it to see it larger. Hope y’all are well. I’ll reply to comments and Twitter etc., again, when I’m back in a world that doesn’t charge $1.50/mb.

The colours here, every blue you’ve ever seen, and others you’ve only dreamed of, are unbelievable. John Paul Caponigro said something interesting yesterday, he said, “we’ll go home and people will assume we’ve boosted the saturation in Photoshop. We’ll tell them we haven’t, but that we really should in order to make it look the way it really felt.” He’s right. No saturation boost here, but I swear the colours are really much more vibrant. There’s a luminosity that is almost shocking. I am in love with this blue place.

*BTW, to clarify, when I mentionned the “polar bear swim” the other day I didn’t mean to imply that there are polar bears here. There aren’t. It’s just a term for the ludicrous phenomenon of stripping down to nothing but shorts and going for a swim in stupidly cold water because, well, other people are doing it too. It explains the nasty cold I’ve got now.

We’re camped out at Cuverville Island right now, spent the afternoon wet and bounced around in Zodiacs chasing ice. You wouldn’t believe the colours. I’ll show you something from this afternoon soon; in the mean-time here’s a pair of penguins.

We spent this morning on Half Moon Island after our first peaceful night off the Drake Passage. We woke to gorgeous light and just after 8am were in Zodiacs bouncing to shore. People keep asking me what I most want to photograph, and at this point I still don’t know. A new place like this is a little like a first date, there’s a getting-to-know-you time that’s needed, a chance to let this place tell me who she is and what she’s about. To jump off the boat and start shooting is a little like meeting someone new and talking too much. You need to give her a chance to speak. And in the case of the antarctic, what she’s saying is serene and infused with light.

I’m not gonna lie, the shore landings are rough on my feet. If you’ve seen a penguin hopping and waddling around, you’ll have a sense of what I look like, though arguably less adorable. But shooting from the zodiacs is amazing, floating in slow circles around the massive blue-white ice is like a dream.

This afternoon we headed to Deception Island and explored the old whaling station, rusted and abandoned, and finished the day with a polar bear swim and some vodka. It wasn’t pretty. Or warm. But while the hypothermia is temporary, the glory is forever. What a day!