Bridge of the Clipper Adventurer, South Georgia. © www.thomaspickard.com

This photo was taken on one of the many Antarctic voyages I did in November / December 2008 on board the ice breaker, the Clipper Adventurer.

The Clipper Adventurer is a small ship, with a total carrying capacity of around 175 people (that includes all crew). Like all ships, the Bridge is the command centre. It is here, jammed between radars, charts (maps are called charts on ships), radios, satellite phones and consoles with more buttons and dials than I would know what to do with, that the decisions are made.

For Expedition Leader Laurie Dexter (in the blue coat centre), it is a place where he would spend a lot of his time, liaising with the First Mate (second in command) and Captain about the ship’s course, estimated time to the next landing and countless other things that go into running a successful voyage.

Of all the ships I’ve worked on – The Aurora Australis, the Akademik Sergey Vavilov, the Akademik Ioffe and the Clipper Adventurer – they all have one thing in common: the ship’s Bridge is a very quiet place. Sure, the crew talk at a normal conversational volume, but here is the thing: there is more watching and listening on a Bridge than conversation.

That makes the Bridge a very peaceful place, especially when you are travelling through a place as a majestic as Antarctica.

View more polar ship photography at this gallery – TRANSPORT | Polar Ships

—

Antarctica…a remote and other worldly destination.

I hope you go one day and experience it for yourself – it will be etched in your mind forever.

Double click on the image to license it.

—

Ask me anything you want about Antarctica on Facebook

—–

—

Comment on Facebook

—–

Parasailing, Maldives. © www.thomaspickard.com

Wooden fence and sky, New Zealand. © www.thomaspickard.com

Pack ice, glaciers and mountains, Antarctica. © www.thomaspickard.com

Silhouette of a ship bow, Poland. © www.thomaspickard.com

Red chairs on grass, Sri Lanka. © www.thomaspickard.com

—

Facebook

—–

“In the months after the trip [my first polar trip], I had my photos developed and was sorely disappointed. My dreams of producing epic polar images and long-lasting images of people in the polar environment, was replaced by poorly composed photos, which lacked decent lighting and at times, terrible exposures.”

Excerpt from a 10-page feature spread about my Polar Work in Issue Two of F8 Magazine.

F8 Magazine is a relatively new online magazine, published bi-monthly with the stated aim of ”publishing and promoting contemporary documentary photography and photojournalism”. The editor Miguel A Moya is doing a great job and I was really happy to talk at length about my photographic journey with my polar work. I was brutally honest about my early work, as you can probably tell from the excerpt above.

Below are 5 of the 10 published pages – you can download Issue 2 of F8 Magazine here to see the rest of my Polar Work feature and plenty of other great photography from the likes of Thomas Lee and Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert.

Links:

F8 Magazine

F8 Magazine on Facebook

—–

Stay in touch: Become a fan on facebook

—–

(The dots in the photo are actually birds).

The first time I saw Antarctica back in 1991, I was on the maiden voyage of the Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis. I remember being on the bridge and looking out at the horizon and seeing an enormous cloud bank. Little did I know.

Thirty minutes later, news was spreading through the ship like wild fire – we can see the continent now!

Along with some colleagues, I stepped out onto the ship’s deck and into the frigid polar air. Joining a small group of people already outside, I asked ‘where is Antarctica?’

Someone pointed to the horizon and said ‘right there!’

You know that cloud bank I was talking about? Well, that was Antarctica. And it was unbelievably big. It started on one side of the horizon and stretched all the way across to the other side. I had never seen such a colossal land mass. It was mind boggling.

Fast forward to the summer of 2003/2004 and I’m back in Antarctica. This time in the Northern Prince Charles Mountains. Our camp is situated on the very edge of Beaver Lake. One calm evening, I’m looking at the map and I realise that from one side of the lake to the other is 10 kilometres!

Looking out over the lake in the clear polar air, the other side looks like it is maybe a kilometre or two away.

Spend enough time on the continent and you quickly learn about how vast the place is. As a photographer I’ve always felt part of the challenge of photographing Antarctica was trying to show just how big and vast parts of it are.

Take this photo. This was taken from the ice breaker, the Clipper Adventurer in 2008. At the time I was probably four or five levels above the water line and the berg towered above my position. It was what I would call a biggish berg (the really big one’s can be miles long). The birds – those tiny black dots – are the only thing that help show the immensity of this iceberg. Without them, we just wouldn’t be able to comprehend how big this berg really is.

License the image by clicking on it.

Embed and share at your own site by clicking the triangle in the lower right hand corner.

Related Posts

From the Archive: Scouting Landings in Antarctica.

From the Archive: Whaler’s Bay Antarctica.

The Art of Random Photo Pairing

New Antarctic Images

—–

Though most photographers’ have a love / hate relationship with Getty Images, Getty has a huge collection and more importantly a huge reach to existing and potential customers. Getty continues to license imagery of mine, which I know I wouldn’t be able to license myself, for the simple fact that I can’t connect with the diversity of buyers the way Getty does.

The iceberg photo was licensed via Getty Images as a Rights Managed license. The two vertical photos were licensed via Aurora Photos for inclusion in a book coming out in 2011 on luxury hotels. Once it is published, I can provide more details.

Water, waves and ice, Cierva Cove, Davis Coast, Graham Land, Antarctica, on the 18 November 2008. Click on the image to license it.

Portrait of Mauritian Guest Relations Manager Barbara Porydor at Shangri-La Resort, Villingili Island, Addu (Seenu) Atoll, Maldives, on the 31 January 2010.

Thatch covered outdoor lounge, Shangri-La Resort, Villingili Island, Addu (Seenu) Atoll, Maldives, on the 1 February 2010. Click on the image to license it.

Related Posts:

Processing, Processing, Processing

Vintage Stock Photography – The Way it Used To Be

—–

This weeks photo from the archive comes from Port Lockroy in Antarctica.

Antarctica is without a doubt one of my favourite places in the world. Working in Antarctica is all about adventure and what lays around the next corner, so to speak.

When I work in Antarctica as a Guide / Photography Lecturer, one of the things we always do prior to a passenger landing, is take a scout zodiac (inflatable motorised boat) and check out the actual landing site. Driving a zodiac without any passengers, is a bit like being given the keys to dad’s car when you are growing up. Fun, fun, fun.

You get to zip around icebergs; shoot the breeze with other scouting staff and generally marvel at being paid to do such amazing things, in such an incredible locations.

Now don’t get me wrong. Taking passengers on zodiac cruises around glaciers and facilitating landings with passengers is good fun too – great in fact. For me at least, it is the combination of the people you meet and the places you collectively see, that really make the journeys worth while.

View and license images from the Antarctic Peninsula at Thomas Pickard’s Stock Archive.

Related Posts:

New Antarctic Images

From the Archive: Whaler’s Bay

From the Archive: Chinese Forecaster Portrait at Great Wall Station, Antarctica

License the image by clicking on it.

Embed and share at your own site by clicking the triangle in the lower right hand corner.

—–

Bivy self portrait,  Manning Valley, Northern Prince Charles Mountains, Antarctica, 2003.

Don’t forget to put yourself in the photo from time to time.

—–

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.

License the image by clicking on it.

Embed and share at your own site by clicking the triangle in the lower right hand corner.

—–