This weeks photo from the archive, comes from a remote volcanic island in Antarctica – Deception Island.

Situated in the South Shetland Islands off of the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, Deception Island operated a whaling station from 1912 to 1931. Known as Whaler’s Bay, the site today is a littered with rusting tanks, collapsing buildings and partially buried remains, like in this photo.

Today the island is a popular stop for visiting tourists travelling to Antarctica on polar cruise ships.

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]]> http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/05/from-the-archive-whalers-bay-antarctica/feed/ 1 http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/04/from-the-archive-chinese-portrait-at-great-wall-station-antarctica/ http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/04/from-the-archive-chinese-portrait-at-great-wall-station-antarctica/#comments Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:14:07 +0000 Thomas Pickard http://thomaspickard.com/blog/?p=1605

This weeks photo from the archive comes from the Great Wall Station, King George Island, Shetland Islands, Antarctica (phew…they have such long location names in Antarctica!).

Visiting an Antarctic station that doesn’t normally receive visitors is a big deal – I know because I’ve lived and worked at Antarctic stations and experienced first hand what it is like to have this huge influx of people into your life all of a sudden. While it can be a bit overwhelming, it can also be a pleasant change to the regular people you live with, day in and day out.

In this particular instance, I along with one other guide, took two zodiac loads of Chinese passengers from our ship, the Clipper Adventurer to the Great Wall Station for an afternoon visit. Great Wall Station isn’t used to visitors and the station staff do two-year stints, so let me tell you, they were pretty happy to see us!

So much so, they put on a big spread of afternoon tea and a tour of the station. Like our passengers, I find stations pretty interesting places. As a photographer, I always try and capture something about the place which sums up my experience.

In this instance, it was meeting this friendly young Chinese Weather Forecaster, who was on the last couple of months of a two-year stay. With excellent spoken English, he talked with me about his time on the ice and how much he was looking forward to going home.

Before we parted ways I asked if I could take a portrait. With a nod of approval I quickly found a prop – in this case the large carpeted wall with a picture of the Great Wall of China on it – and promptly asked my new friend to stand in front of it.

The result is this environmental portrait.

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]]> http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/04/from-the-archive-chinese-portrait-at-great-wall-station-antarctica/feed/ 1 http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/04/the-antarctic-peninsula-solitary-moments/ http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/04/the-antarctic-peninsula-solitary-moments/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 05:59:31 +0000 Thomas Pickard http://thomaspickard.com/blog/?p=1545 The photos below were taken in November and December 2008, while I was working as a Polar Guide and Photography Lecturer on the Clipper Adventurer. For two great months I cruised up and down the Antarctic Peninsula, taking photos, liaising with passengers and experiencing a unique part of the world.

Early on in this trip, I told myself to photograph everything that I would see. I did this in part, because when I am working as a guide on landings with passengers, photography often comes second, unless I am involved with a photography group.

By telling myself to simply photograph everything, I was really giving myself permission to not think too much about it and just take photos. Such an attitude can really free you up visually.

At a practical level it means a couple of things:

1. If you ‘see’ it, then photograph it. This isn’t a license for sloppy composition and poor technique though, so don’t confuse the two.

2. Don’t chimp (look at your camera screen after every shot). Not only does this break your shooting mojo, it increases the chances of you missing another potentially great shot.

As for the photos below, I pulled these out of my Stock Archive as I really liked the solitary nature of each photo and the relationship of the person with their environment.

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See the full Antarctic Peninsula Gallery at my stock library.

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Commercial fishermen sleeping on the back deck of a commercial fishing dhoni (traditional Maldivian boat), off the coast of Addu (Seenu) Atoll, Indian Ocean, Maldives, on the 6th of June 2006

This technique is about understanding the relationship between a fast moving object (the vessel), the surroundings (the ocean) and the cameras shutter speed.

Let’s take the shutter speed. The lower the shutter speed – 1/30th, 1/15th, 1/8th…1 second, 2 second etc.. – the blurrier your image will be.

Now if we take a fast moving object such as the vessel, which was doing about 15-knots at the time of the photograph, and use a slow shutter speed, the wake from the vessel will appear blurry. Lower the shutter speed to a really slow setting – say 10 seconds – and the wake will have a distinct motion blur about it.

The question then becomes, how do you keep the deck in sharp focus at such long exposures?

You use a tripod.

As the vessel is clearly moving forward and gently rolling left to right, what you are trying to do is to ‘anchor’ your camera and tripod to the vessels movement. Without a tripod, you would never be able to hand hold the camera with a 15-second shutter speed and produce a sharp image of the vessel.

Place the camera on a tripod though and do everything you can to keep the tripod firmly pinned to the deck, and you may just get an image of the vessel in sharp focus. It typically takes a few shots to find out where the sweet spot is between a slow shutter speed, a creamy motion blur and a sharp vessel.

This technique is easiest when you are on a fast moving vessel. A faster moving vessel means you don’t need as low a shutter speed to get the motion blur effect. Though you still need a tripod, the shorter slow shutter speed means you have a greater chance of getting the deck in sharp focus.

The technical details for the photo above are: 15-seconds; f22; ISO 800

The image below is another example of the same technique.

This was a harder shot to produce as the ship was going much slower than the vessel in the photo above.

The technical details for the photo below are: 2-seconds; f22; ISO 100.

A tourist on the stern deck of the polar cruise ship the Clipper Adventurer, Drake Passage, on the 22 November 2008. (Motion blur).

One of my favourite shots using this technique is at the following link:

Paul Souders photo of a tanker passing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge

Keep experimenting with slow shutter speeds and moving objects and remember: technique is beyond the tools.

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For us, time lost all relevance. Instead we adjusted to the weather patterns, which mainly meant working when it wasn’t too windy and resting when it was. Antarctica is an incredibly windy place and working outside in cold temperatures for 8-12 hours a day can be a challenge when the wind is really cranking.

I returned the following year, this time to the Framnes Mountains. The Framnes were totally different to the Prince Charles Mountains and fortunately, they were a bit more weather friendly.

Like the Prince Charles Mountains though, they were an other-worldly sort of place. The Framnes reminded me once again that Antarctica is a place far removed from the world that most of us know.

The images below are some selects from the Framnes Mountains, which are now available for licensing through Aurora Photos. Just double click on the image to license via Aurora Photos.

The bow of the Australian icebreaker, The Aurora Australis plunging into large ocean waves during a voyage to Antarctica, The Southern Ocean, on the 21 November 2004.

Pack ice and icebergs, Vestfold Hills, Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica, on the 1 December 2004.

Aerial view of Mawson Station, Framnes Mountains, Mac Robertson Land, Antarctica, on the 7 December 2004.

Andrew McPhee lowering an insturment into a hole in a frozen lake, which measures water temperature, water salinity and other chemical characteristics as part of an Australian sponsored project studying lake limnology, Hanging Lake, Henderson Massif, Framnes Mountains, Mac Robertson Land, Antarctica, on the 13 January 2005.

A man walking towards heavy equipment at an ice runway used for Australian Antarctic Division aircraft, North Masson Range, Framnes Mountains, Mac Robertson Land, Antarctica, on the 3 February 2005.

Scientists standing next to a Hagglund during a blizzard, Rumdoodle Hut, North Masson Range, Framnes Mountains, Mac Robertson Land, Antarctica, on the 3 January 2005.

A firefighter standing at the ready next to an ice runway used for Australian Antarctic Division aircraft, North Masson Range, Framnes Mountains, Mac Robertson Land, Antarctica, on the 3 February 2005. The distant range is David Range.

Andrew 'Blanket' McPhee photographing a mummified seal about 20-km from the ocean, South Masson Range, Framnes Mountains, Mac Robertson Land, Antarctica, on the 24 January 2005.

Aerial view of ice berg and sea ice near the Amery Ice Shelf, Prydz Bay, Antarctica, on the 3 February 2005.

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I will be taking parts of my portfolio in a new direction this year and I am already lining up some shoots back in Australia in April and sketching some ideas for Japan in June. Just quietly, I can’t wait!

While putting together image submissions, I came across some of my earliest Antarctic work from the incredible Framnes Mountains in east Antarctica. Wow! What a blast from the past. Seems like a life time ago I was in the Framnes hanging out in the huts dotted around the ranges, with good friends Blanket, Camille and David.

I picked out a couple of favourites below:

Aerial view of The David Range, Framnes Mountains, Mac Robertson Land, Antarctica

Andrew 'Blanket' McPhee photographing a mummified seal about 20-km from the ocean, Antarctica.

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King Penguin, South Georgia.

When I came back from my second trip to Antarctica in March of 2004, I had some 75 rolls of Fuji Velvia. At 36-exposures a roll, that meant 2700 slides to deal with. At the time, it felt like a lot of photos.

Fast forward a couple of years and it isn’t unusual for me to produce 100′s of photos in just one morning. The last three days I was out shooting, I produced an average of 300 photos over a four hour period.

While there is no doubt my shooting has improved over the last 5-years, I have also been shooting a lot more things. The end result is a LOT of photos to import, edit and catalog each year.

Recently I have been spending some time going through my catalog and I inevitably come across random photos that are strong, but are not necessarily part of any one body of work.

I remember seeing a great series on photo pairing by Damon Winter over at the NY Times site. Influenced by that, I started looking again at these random photos and ways in which they could be paired. The photos above and below are just two examples of what I am talking about.

Ice and snow, Antarctica.

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It’s been a while since I posted a postcard. I’ve always like the composition in this photo and the contrast between the yellow jackets and the blue sky (no polarizer either – it was that blue).

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Double page spread in British Airways High Life, December 2009 Issue.

Last year I was on route from Sydney to London – on my way to the Arctic – when I picked up the British Airways Inflight Magazine, High Life.

Flicking through it, I realised I needed to get in touch with the Photo Editor at High Life. It was just the type of publication that suited the type of travel photography I produce.

Just months after returning from my 3 1/2 months in the Arctic, I received an email one day from the Photo Editor at High Life, asking for a lightbox of polar imagery (I love it when that happens).

A year later, the PE and AD decided to go with a double page opener of an image I took of the icebreaker the Akademik Sergey Vavilov, while cruising past the Seven Islands, the most northerly point of Norway.

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Click on the photo to view Aurora Photos feature page

One of the things I love about the Aurora Photos site is the number of photo features they have from all over the world. Updated weekly, the features are made up from photos from their contributing photographers.

Last week a feature went up on Antarctica made up of imagery I have had selected by Aurora for stock representation.

If you are a creative looking for Antarctic imagery ready to license for your publication, then head over to have a look.

As for the photos, they were taken while I was working on an expedition cruise ship as a Photography Lecturer & Guide, in November and December 2008. You can see all my polar photos available for licensing with Aurora Photos at this link: Thomas Pickard Polar Photography

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