Pentax K-7, FA-77/1.9 ltd.
Pentax K-7, DA* 300/4
Currently in transit at Terminal 5 on Heathrow with nothing better to do, I figured I might as well start the picture flood. I will present one pic from each of our landings, or from our passage of the seas where I was fit for photography.
On our first landing at Carcass Island (West Falklands) we had bright sunshine and balmy temperatures. Beautiful start to the trip. Spring was bursting all over the place, with the usual compliment of seasonal activities performed by the local wildlife. And they weren't shy about it either!
Just a quick note.
First of all, many, many thanks to all of you who have read my blog; and all the more to those who bothered to leave a comment! This is the first time I've had the occasion to see them, and it really warms my heart! Even the shake-up from Maritimtim on seasickness! :-)
To my defence, in that department, I can brag about NOT having been seasick at all across the Drake passage! Despite ocean swells comparable to those that knocked me flat to and fro South Georgia. It seems my system is gradually, ever so gradually, getting used to being at sea.
Actually, as we anchored up outside Ushuaia waiting for the pilot to take us to harbour, I was wondering how much "residue" the ocean swells would leave in my organism when back on solid ground. I guess I will find out for sure tonight when my head hits the pillow, but so far I haven't noticed anything. Much to my surprise. ;-)
Ushuaia is a town that puzzled me. It shares the building style of Buenos Aires, which means that it's a pretty strange conglomerate of ramshackle tin-roofed build-as-you-go houses, and fancy modern stuff. And of course yesteryear's modern stuff; in a variety of states of maintenance. The concept of neighbourhoods does not seem to exist, though. Shacks and middle-class houses may stand wall to wall. The approach to choice of coloring on the house walls seemed also rather haphazard. We saw a B&B, for example, with details in oiled oak and green-painted concrete. And we counted at least 3 distinct varieties of green, ranging from the matte colour of avocado meat to the juicy greens of lime rind.
Tonight we were honeypotted (sorry about verbing) to another tourist trap; a beef restaurant with a live show of the history of Tango. Wine was included, and so it was that I, after nearly a whole bottle of Argentinian Red, tried my hand at stage photography. My mind was blurred (a bit clearer now, thank you), and my pictures got blurred. Most of them anyway. I think I managed to isolate a couple of moments; judging from the rear screen of the camera. Might be worth a blog post after all.
Tomorrow is leisurly; at least compared to some of our schedules on the boat, we only need to be ready for going to the airport at 10:00 AM. A fifteen hour flight to London awaits. Then another couple of hours to get to Oslo; which we'll reach around 16:30 wednesday afternoon. Boy, it will be good to get home.
Thanks again to all of you who have bothered to read my ramblings, I promise I will respond to each of the comments in turn when I get back home.
In the meanwhile, here's a pic I meant to post from the Falklands, but which would never upload through the crappy link. Taken from the whale safari off the Valdez peninsula, Argentina:
Today is our final day in Antarctica. As advertised in the previous
post, we got up at 05:00 and went ashore to yet another Gentoo penguin
colony. I had my doubts about going this time. There are limits to how
many ways one can photograph a penguin. Or more penguins. We got the
full reportoire a long time ago already; fighting Gentoo penguins,
courting Gentoo penguins, mating Gentoo penguins, swimming Gentoo
Penguins... Closeups, group shots, animal-in-environment shots, you name
it. The Gentoos are ubiquitous; we have encountered them at nearly every
landing site on the Falklands, South Georgia and around the Peninsula.
Yet, Neko Harbour turned out to offer some unique possibilities. The
rookery is situated right beside a glacier, on a moraine ridge that has
quite deep snow all the way down to the beach. There are only a few
places where the penguins can actually get in and out of the water, and
at times there is a lot of bird traffic coming past. It was a treat to
just sit down and watch them transit from one element to another. I even
remembered that my camera has video capabilities, and did some
recordings. Not fit for public scrutiny, though. Don't expect to see any
videos posted on this blog.
Breakfast was waiting when we got back to the ship. Then we sailed
through another narrow stretch called Gerlache Strait, to make the final
landing at Cuverville Island. Access to the beach was blocked by ice,
however, so the guides made an ad hoc decision to go for another zodiac
cruise among the intensely blue icebergs. As we cruised along the stony
shore of Cuverville Island, past yet another Gentoo penguin rookery, we
noticed that there were unusually many birds in the water, swimming
together like a swarm. When at the surface they made the water boil. As
if on cue, they would all disappear, and resurface some distance away.
We paused to look at this for a while, and suddenly the cause of their
behaviour emerged. A leopard seal was hunting along the beach. The seal
got curious about the zodiacs and checked us out.
By fortunate accident, my 77mm polafilter is stuck in the thread of my
14mm lens at the moment. I had decided I wanted to use a polariser for
pictures of underwater ice, and so the 14mm was mounted on one camera
instead of the more general-purpose DA* 16-50mm. For the Leopard seal
encounter the 14mm was a better deal. That's how close we got.
Fantastic experience.
At the moment we're leaving Antarctica for the Drake passage. We have
been told to pack away all loose items and apply remedies for
seasickness as needed; it seems we're in for some rough weather towards
Ushuaia.
Indeed, I had to enter the bridge to post this, that's where the
satellite connected computer is, and I don't wish to do that again in a
hurry.
Unless I get some idle time in either Ushuaia or Buenos Aires, this will
probably be my last blogpost until getting back to Norway. It's been
three amazing weeks. So many amazing places, and so many nice people.
Truly a fantastic experience.
This morning started with passage through the Neumayer Channel. A
stretch of fjord with spectacular mountains and glaciers on both sides.
Some of us even skipped breakfast to see this. For the first time we
also met another tourist ship. A vessel larger than ours, somewhere
between luxury yacht and full-blown cruiseliner. Very sobering
correction to our sense of proportions, making the nature experience all
the more humbling.
Just after this encounter I sneaked into the kitchen and begged some
food. As I was just finishing a bowl of cereals, our guides announced
arrival at Port Lockroy in a few minutes. No rest for the busy tourist.
:-)
Port Lockroy is a small British station where they run only one
scientific experiment. The station is build on a small island that hosts
a Gentoo Penguin colony. Half the island has been fenced off; allowing
the station crew to study the effect of tourism on the penguins.
To lure the tourists into this experiment (ie. a genuine Tourist Trap!),
the British Antarctic Survey has made a museum of the whole station,
restored into a snapshot of what it was like in its heyday in the
nineteen-fifties. It is also possible to have one's passport stamped,
and buy a variety of souvernirs. All major credit cards accepted.
In total, the station attracts around 30.000 tourists every season. And
though nobody explicitly told me so, I got a distinct feeling that this
little business is doing a good job of funding other research activities
for the British Antarctic Survey.
The penguins seemed quite satisfied with the arrangement too. According
to the staff, the breeding success is slightly higher in the tourist
zone. The suspected cause is that skuas are more intimidated by tourists
than are the penguins, and so leave the eggs and chicks in the tourist
zone alone. This sounds quite puzzling to us, because skuas have been
quite ignorant of our presence at other landings.
Our second outing for the day took place in "Paradise Bay". It's a name
I have been unable to locate on any online map, but it refers to the
fjords around the Argentinian Brown base. There are several glaciers
feeding into this bay, leaving the waters full of little icebergs.
Apparently the sea ice had recently broken up too, because there were
also thousands of small and larger flakes of sheet ice floating around.
Into these waters we were taken on a "zodiac-cruise". Zig-zagging
between the icebergs was amazing. There was no wind and only partly
clouded. Excellent weather for shooting ice in water. With a
polarisation filter it was amazing how much submerged detail we could
discern through the crystal-clear water. And what colours. The shades of
blue and green were almost otherworldly.
In fact, a thought about these colours have nagged me ever since this
morning in the Neumayer Channel. It is said that many people who travel
the polar regions are infected with a sort of "polar bug" that makes
them go back time after time. Today's visual impressions has made me
wonder if it isn't the colours themselves that are infectious. Some
imperative quality of the light itself. I already fear I may have caught
that bug.
But I digress. The landing at Brown base was the first touch of the
Antarctic continent itself. The Argentinians were not at home, but a
host of Gentoo penguins played caretakers. By now, I feel more or less
saturated on penguin photography, but I still think they are some of the
funniest animals in the world to watch. How they come swimming like
little torpedoes between the ice flakes, and use their swimming speed to
get out of the water in their stride, running for the first couple of
steps to brake down. And then the clumsy looking walk with
characteristic swing of the head and wings straight out to the sides to
keep their balance. If you sit still, they will ignore you unless you
are in a straight path between the penguin and its destination. If you
are, it will stop at two meters' distance and consider. What exactly
their bird brains do consider is a mystery, but apparently it takes a
long time to figure out the options. In most cases the bird will just
walk around. However in deep snow they make regular paths, or "highways"
as our guide calls them, that they do not lightly abandon. We had to
take care not to trample all over such paths at times. Fortunately they
are easily distinguishable by the pink remnants of digested krill...
Tomorrow we will rise at 05:00 for another landing on the Peninsula, so
I better get this posted and hit the pillow. It's 21:15 ship time, and
I'm just about finished taking backup of the afternoon's 700 images.
This post is made just to get a hands-on description of how we are
doing.
I am standing on the front deck with the laptop resting on some metal
structure. Almost everyone is out, and PolarQuest is handing out beers
or soft drinks. We are cruising along the Southwest side of the South
Hebrides in bright sunlight and nearly flat sea. Temperature is an
amazing five celsius above zero. My hands get a little cold as I write
this, but not really impairing my typing speed. But please allow for
more typos than usual. :-)
This morning we made another successful landing; the Aitcho Island was
another fascinating closeup with Antarctic wildlife. Gentoo and
Chinstrap penguins for most part. What was new this time was that the
animals came ashore just where we landed, so we got all the images we
could wish for, of penguins in water.
One of the guides just interrupted, calling our attention to feeding
gentoos swimming just in front of the ship. I got a few shots before
they vanished.
The landscape gliding past on our right hand side is spectacular.
Glaciers and nunataks, sometimes with icebergs just broken off, or with
visible moraines towards a bit of beach. All the mountains are jagged
and sharp; adding to a feeling of majestic desolation.
Okay; now my fingers _are_ getting cold. :-)
But I couldn't pass the opportunity.
The following was written yesterday, 17. November:
After completing my previous post, something interesting DID turn up.
Today we got to see the humpback whales. They played around the sides of
the ship; we could see their white bellies down in the water. They
surfaced occasionally to breathe, but no spectacular jumps. Our guides
are puzzled by their presence, because they have a long way to swim from
the breeding grounds in more tropical areas. Normally they do not arrive
in Antarctic waters until the turn of the year. This brings our total
whale sightings list up to four species. We saw the Right Whale in
Argentina, Hourglass Dolphins on the leg between Falklands and South
Georgia, fin whales yesterday, and today the humpbacks. Today we also
encountered the first really big icebergs. Big as in more volume than
our ship above the water line. Man those structures are awesome.
On many of the icebergs there are chinstrap penguins chilling out. They
bring the total penguin species count up to five; Gentoo, Rockhopper,
King, Macaroni and Chinstrap. The Adelie penguins have not shown
themselves yet, but I expect they will turn up further South.
Whenever I have seen pictures of icebergs, I have always thought the
blueishness of the ice was a Photoshop construct. It is therefore doubly
stunning to see the actual blueness of the icebergs. Especially close to
the waterline. Must be something about how the light is reflected from
the ice below the waterline, onto the parts we see. Together with the
sheer dimensions of the icebergs it's awesome. Beyond awesome.
Just before dinner, when going through the captures from this morning, I
had a hard time deleting any of the images at all. Even mediocre images
are kept. The landscapes just so blows me away that I can't find the
heart to delete them. But heck, I have already weeded pretty well in the
collection, so I would have to shoot 10.000 images a day for the rest of
the trip to exceed my storage capacity.
Just after dinner, most of us rushed back on the deck to photograph
icebergs in the sideways light of sunset. It was a beautiful sunset in
its own right, but the floating chunks of ice turned even more blue. It
may well be the most stunning sunset I have ever seen. The captain is
performing some kind of ballet with the icebergs, dodge one, swing
around another, and still keeping between 10 and 12 knots. Fortunately
the sea is nearly flat and with no winds. We are indeed on a lucky
streak weatherwise.
The plan for tomorrow is to land at Aitcho Island in the South Hebrides,
receive a crash course in snowshoe walking, and go for a hike to another
penguin colony. If the weather stays like this it will be just a stroll.
Fingers crossed.
After completing my previous post, something interesting DID turn up.
Today we got to see the humpback whales. They played around the sides of
the ship; we could see their white bellies down in the water. They
surfaced occasionally to breathe, but no spectacular jumps. Our guides
are puzzled by their presence, because they have a long way to swim from
the breeding grounds in more tropical areas. Normally they do not arrive
in Antarctic waters until the turn of the year. This brings our total
whale sightings list up to four species. We saw the Right Whale in
Argentina, Hourglass Dolphins on the leg between Falklands and South
Georgia, fin whales yesterday, and today the humpbacks. Today we also
encountered the first really big icebergs. Big as in more volume than
our ship above the water line. Man those structures are awesome.
On many of the icebergs there are chinstrap penguins chilling out. They
bring the total penguin species count up to five; Gentoo, Rockhopper,
King, Macaroni and Chinstrap. The Adelie penguins have not shown
themselves yet, but I expect they will turn up further South.
Whenever I have seen pictures of icebergs, I have always thought the
blueishness of the ice was a Photoshop construct. It is therefore doubly
stunning to see the actual blueness of the icebergs. Especially close to
the waterline. Must be something about how the light is reflected from
the ice below the waterline, onto the parts we see. Together with the
sheer dimensions of the icebergs it's awesome. Beyond awesome.
Just before dinner, when going through the captures from this morning, I
had a hard time deleting any of the images at all. Even mediocre images
are kept. The landscapes just so blows me away that I can't find the
heart to delete them. But heck, I have already weeded pretty well in the
collection, so I would have to shoot 10.000 images a day for the rest of
the trip to exceed my storage capacity.
Just after dinner, most of us rushed back on the deck to photograph
icebergs in the sideways light of sunset. It was a beautiful sunset in
its own right, but the floating chunks of ice turned even more blue. It
may well be the most stunning sunset I have ever seen. The captain is
performing some kind of ballet with the icebergs, dodge one, swing
around another, and still keeping between 10 and 12 knots. Fortunately
the sea is nearly flat and with no winds. We are indeed on a lucky
streak weatherwise.
The plan for tomorrow is to land at Aitcho Island in the South Hebrides,
receive a crash course in snowshoe walking, and go for a hike to another
penguin colony. If the weather stays like this it will be just a stroll.
Fingers crossed.
We hit the ocean swells again after leaving South Georgia. And again I
got knocked out flat with seasickness. Scopolamin patch to no avail; I
have had another 36 hours doing nothing but to lie as still as possible.
It's a bit of comfort, though, that many of the other passengers are
going through the same. I may be a chicken, but not the only chicken...
:-)
By the time of posting, we have covered most of the distance between
South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. We are currently heading for
Elephant Island, but with little hope of actually getting ashore
bedcause of the sea ice. We have the huge advantage of having another
ship ahead of us, that can report on ice conditions before we get there.
Even if we don't make a landing on the island, there's a good chance of
seeing whales along the edge of the ice, so we keep our fingers crossed
for another good nature experience.
During a recap and debrief of our days at South Georgia, we learned that
our luck with the weather is almost unprecedented. We made landings at a
total of 9 sites; and one of the guides even got a first-time landing on
one of the more exclusive sites; featuring Macaroni Penguins, among
other things.
As of now, the ocean swells have either dampened down, or alternatively,
my brain has been sufficiently dampened down not to notice. Anyways,
there are many people out on deck photographing icebergs while hoping to
catch a glimpse of a whale or two.
I can't wait to start posting images from this trip. Hopefully I can
convey some of the sense of wonder from being here.
Oh, and someone mentioned in the passing that this is the very ship that
Michael Reichmann from the Luminous Landscape website travelled on a
couple of years ago. I relay this information just to give you a hint of
how used they are to accommodate for the wishes of photographers.
Yesterday we got a good example of their understanding for our desires
when they turned the ship to follow a group of whales for a while, in
hope of getting some good shots. The whales however, were busy and hard
to track, so eventually we gave up. But it was very kind of the captain
to try anyway.
More later, now I wish to join my fellow passengers on deck, in case
something interesting turns up.
South Georgia has, after its own fashion, given us a warm welcome!
Surely, we have had showers of snow and katabastic wind-attacks, but
every beach landing so far has been smooth, and we've had more sunshine
than clouds. The experiences will be etched on my mind forever. The
wandering albatross and its half-grown offspring at Prion Island. The
king penguins, elephant seals and fur seals at Salisbury plains and St.
Andrew's bay, and the old ruins of the whaling station at Prince Olav
bay. At the latter we were not permitted on shore, however, because the
buildings are in such a condition that they may fold like a card house
over any visitor careless enough to just sneeze.
Not sure I'm able to put down a lot of words to describe these events
yet. They are all grand, both on geographical, emotional and
photographic scale. From the last 36 hours I have obtained about 20000
images. I haven't had time to do anything but to just store them on the
computer and make backups.
Oh, yes, and one more thing; geotagging the images by matching them with
the log from my little GPS unit. The job has just insinuated itself into
my workflow, and it seems like the most natural thing of the world to do
by now. It's just a few clicks to harvest the data from the GPS and
store it. Then another few clicks with GeoSetter to match the log with
the images. Works every time!
I have also experimented a little with the video functionality of K-7.
More on that later, when I begin to make heads and tails of it.
Further, I have also FINALLY got around to use a good-quality sound
recorder I bought 3 years ago. I have made recordings of the somewhat
obscene sounds of elephant seals, and the all together puzzling sounds
of the king penguins and their chicks.
To visit Grytviken was also quite an experience. The place is simple
enough to tour, there are only a few stops. Ernest Shackletons grave,
the whaling museum, the church, the old derelict buildings and stranded
ships from the whale industry, and the recently opened hydropower plant.
And the souvernir shop, of course, where I bought an obligatory "been
there" t-shirt and some christmas presents. The bill was paid by credit
card, which gave a certain feeling of paradox; being so far, far away
from anywhere else and yet pay with plastic money.
We still have one day left here before heading towards the Antarctic
Peninsula. The landing tomorrow will (most likely) be our only chance to
see Macaroni penguins. Fingers crossed it works out.
North-westerly winds have nudged us in the back all the way from the
Falklands towards South Georgia. The ship has been making roughly 13
knots, and our guides are pleased to remind us, often, that it will mean
more time ashore at South Georgia.
At the time of writing we have had just over 50 hours at sea since we
left the Falklands. A lot of time has been spent weeding the pictures
from the beaches at Falklands, and subsequently assigning keywords and
making backups. The most convenient place for these activites is of
course the ship's lounge, where we also get to glance enviously at each
other's captures and exchange experiences from the various shoots. Some
of us have also spent a few hours on deck, photographing seabirds as
they zoom past in their search for food surfacing in the wake of the
ship. Albatrosses, petrels and so on. Don't ask me to recognise those
species yet, they all look like some kinda fulmar to me. But it's great
practice to have a go. The DA*300/4 lens is seeing a lot of work, as
does the Metz flash and the BetterBeamer. The latter is really doing
wonders for the effective flash range, and enables me to shoot images I
would definately have missed without. It also opens for some creative
flash photograpy. I will pursue this as my stomach allows; my
seasickness has begun stirring again. It feels a bit unfair, because my
roommate is having a great time. Apparently completely unaffected. I
applied another patch of scopolamin a couple of hours ago, but I'm still
not good. Have to lie down frequently to calm the system.
Yesterday our ship was accompanied by a flock of Hourglass dolphins for
nearly 20 minutes. They made beautifully gracious jumps along the side
of the ship, sometimes two or three together, and all of them in
suitably photogenic distance from the ship. However, again I fumbled.
Just like on the whale safari at the Valdez peninsula. Seems like me an
whales don't go well together. All my dolphin shots came out slightly
blurred because my shutter speeds weren't short enough. Grrr...
A few hours ago we passed Shag Rock, a set of jagged peaks protruding
out of the sea in the middle of nowhere. Coloured by guano and inhabited
by thousands, it was indeed a Shag's rock. Our guides were very pleased
to have the opportunity to sail close by, explaining that this point is
normally passed after nightfall. The favourable winds are credited for
this one too.
As of now, our preparations for landing at South Georgia have begun. We
have been instructed to vacuum-clean all outer garments we intend to
bring ashore, as well as all photobags and other equipment that may
become exposed to the island's soil. We will also have to scrub our
boots thoroughly in a disinfecting liquid before setting foot on the
island. Their hope is that these precautions will keep foreign seeds,
micro-organisms and insects from spreading into the ecosystem. It's
tedious work, and with only two vacuum cleaners and over 40 passengers,
it's quite a queue to get it done.
If you have read this far, it might now occur to you that I'm babbling
about trivial and rather insignificant things. You would be right. I'm
bored. :-)
And looking forward to seeing South Georgia tomorrow.
Since the previous post we have moved a long way. The trip has taken turns, both for the worse and for the better. I will take the better first and last, and mention the worse in the middle.
Our next stop after Buenos Aires was Puerto Madryn. A harbour city of 100.000 people situated by the bay Golfo Nuevo. A dusty place at our time there, and probably most of the time. The Argentinian steppe goes all the way down to the ocean, and doesn't even allow a sliver of greener country towards the beach. There are long, shallow beaches everywhere, and the harbour of Puerto Madryn is just two long piers erected far into the water.
After a very short night in a Madryn hotel, we were stirred at 5:00 AM, stacked into a bus at 6:00 AM and hauled along around the Golfo Nuevo to a place called Puerto Piramides. Like Madryn, it wasn't much of a Puerto, but nonetheless the starting point for all official whale safaris in the area. Unlike Madryn, the Piramides is situated within the nature park of the Valdez peninsula; a UNESCO world heritage area with strict regulations on tourism. Strict as in "No camping outside designated areas" and "No walking outside of marked paths". Yet there are sheep ranches in the area, and most if not all land is private property with fences to restrict the movements of sheep.
The whale safari was no disappointment. We were on the water for a couple of hours, watching the social interplay between a Right Whale mother and her calf. Photographically I fumbled a lot and got back with mostly useless images. The swaying boat, the constant competition for the best spot to photograph from, and the unfamiliar behaviour of the subjects all contributed to confuse the hell out of me. But I think I got a couple that will survive posting on the blog when I get the chance.
After the whale safari and a short visit to a Magellan penguin colony, we boarded the expedition ship, and left Argentina in the afternoon. Some time after dark we got caught up in strong winds and big, rolling waves. I don't remember much of it. Slept my way through the first night and most of the following day, dozed through the second night and spent the second morning finally emptying my stomach. Not much to let go of, but it released the tension for a while each time. The ship's doctor patched me up with a scopolamin plaster, and it seems to work. Much to my surprise.
At the time of writing we have arrived at the Falklands. First stop was Carcass Island, where we were invited to tea by the local residents. I skipped that, in favour of photographing a plethora of bird species that weren't really afraid of humans at all. Got lots of nice bird portraits. Took some landscape shots too, but the light wasn't the best for that.
Second stop at the Falklands was Saunders Island, with penguin colonies aplenty. Rockhoppers, King, and Gentoo penguins. Skuas, cormorants and albatrosses were also present and photogenic.
Right now it's Sunday morning, I'm sitting in the lounge at the Malvina hotel in Port Stanley, accessing Internet through a local wireless hotspot that I had to pay outrageously much to get access to. But it's cheaper than the satellite phone text-only option onboard the ship anyway. I have tried to upload some images, but the outgoing bandwidth of the connection is too small, I don't get them through.
