MY ARCTIC EXPEDITION IN SVALBARD

July 2013

When my husband and I booked for this Photographic Experience last year, I think I was thinking it was going to be a cruise on a ship with some great opportunities to take images of Polar Bears, nice landscapes and of course other species of wildlife found in this part of the world. Maybe I had still in my mind our wonderful trip we had to the Antarctica in 2007. This was certainly different – this was an expedition, not a photographic holiday or tour. Not for the faint hearted or for the unfit person. If asked would I do it again my answer would be “Yes if I was 20 years younger” having said that, it is something that will live in our memories for many years to come and we will continue to talk about it also for a very long time. AN EXPEDITION OF A LIFETIME.

Did I prefer this trip to the Antarctica trip? Yes. Why? It was a very small ship, only took 24 people on board, which included the crew so the opportunities to go on land were more frequent. In fact we had at least two landings per day on the zodiacs for as long as it was necessary compared to one landing per day in the Antarctica and then we were only allowed on land for one hour – this is the difference of going on a cruise liner compared to a small expedition ship.

So does one give up the luxuries of a cruise liner – almost definitely to experience this part of the world and capture the beauty, feel the spirituality as you cruise in among the glaciers, pass the icebergs with different species of bird life all around you.

The Arctic is Polar Bear country albeit with global warming, they are moving further north due to the ice melting. Did we see Polar Bears, yes but only six and not on the floating ice as I think many photographers would like to capture. You are not allowed on land if the Polar Bears are near so all our sightings were taken from the zodiacs, albeit we were only 50 metres away from them and had of course the water between us which was our safety factor. One image that I managed to capture (attached for you to enjoy) was the one of mother and child having some loving moments together – I call this one “The Dancing Bears” – as I pressed the shutter, the tears were running down my cheeks, it was a very special moment. Unfortunately one of the photographer’s memory card ran out a few seconds just before this happened and he did not get his new one in on time to get this moment, he was very sad and upset. He offered to buy mine (ha ha), still waiting on his price offer.

There is plenty bird life, walruses, we did not see many seals, (perhaps this is also the reason we did not see as many polar bears as seals are their prey) some of the photographers saw the arctic fox and we saw one reindeer.

The beauty of the landscapes for me was very very special, perhaps due to my passion and forte with landscapes. I have attached a couple of landscapes hopefully showing you that beauty.

Camera equipment I used mainly the D800 with wide angle lenses for the landscapes and the D4 with an 80-400 lens for the wildlife. Tripod was used mainly from the ship or on land when photographing, as it was very difficult on the zodiacs to use a tripod. I also used various graduated filters for the landscapes.

It was a bit rough at times on the ship and we had to pop the pills every now and again for the nausea. The temperature was never below zero at anytime but the wind chill factor plays a role and yes I did feel very cold some days out in the zodiac and wondered if I had any fingers and toes still belonging to me.

I hope to be able to share with you at some stage the presentation that my husband and I are putting together on this wonderful trip. Yes it was expensive and our children are still worried that we spent their inheritance!!! The Expedition was organized and run by ODP in conjunction with Vega Expeditions (a Swedish company) and the ship Origo is a Swedish owned ship.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to share at this stage a part of this wonderful challenging experience.

Evelyn