Photography Expedition to Svalbard

I'm a landscape photographer and for as long as I can remember I've dreamed about visiting the polar North in particular svalbard with its incredible Landscapes and phenomenal wildlife in 2018 I visited with Morton hillmer but the trip was well and truly scuppered by bad weather which more or less left stranded in longibin in 2020 I was due to sail around spitsburg and but yeah 2020 I then tried again in 2022 but due to unforeseen circumstances I was not able to attend and then in March 23 I got an email from my good friend Brendan asking if I would Charter a boat with him and sail around spitzbergen in search of Landscapes and polar bears but there was a catch the ship would set sail in early June which would give us only three months to put together a trip we took a gamble put the trip together and the photography gods were well and truly on our side as we experienced an unforgettable Journey full of incredible highs mind is being blown and everywhere you look there are images this is just non-stop excitement two bears running across the ice actually at one point walking towards us but of course there were also low points on this trip it's bad basically last night at some point the engine stopped this might be the end of the trip after only four days of sailing are we rolling yeah yeah it's miserable miserable location of all the photography Expeditions I have ever undertaken this one presented the most challenges but also offered the most opportunities this is photographing svalbard [Music] [Music] before we all begin to board the ship I just want to let you know that today's video is sponsored by Squarespace no idea I wanted to say hello to everyone because I'm I don't know who anyone is once I had made the horribly awkward introduction and all of the jokes about mine and Brendan's matching camera bags had been made it was time to set sail and what a beautiful sailing day it was with calm winds and almost perfect reflections [Music] all right welcome everybody to the first uh the first outing on the ship here in svalbard it's day one we've just left longiburn well we say just left about six hours ago we left Longview and it's now can you believe it midnight and I've got something really interesting cool to show you just behind me it's probably not gonna come it's not gonna you're not gonna see in that shot I'll throw some b-roll we have a para helic Circle which is this crazy light show and what's really exciting about this is I have the Nikon 14 to 24 mil lens and we have glass-like water so I'm able to photograph the parahelic circle with the 14 mil with this beautiful calm water most people are in bed there's a few of us kicking around um and it's just phenomenal man I can't believe it's midnight I can't believe Prince Albert and uh yeah quite an interesting shot for I suppose what is my uh first image of the trip it's gonna be a it's going to be a great trip [Music] this is probably a good time for me to mention that I took so many images on this trip that it's not possible for me to show them all within the context of this video and of course not all of them were captured whilst I was recording so make sure you stick around to the very end to see the full slideshow of all my images captured from this trip to svalbard foreign good morning everybody and welcome to the first full day here on the boat on this svalbard Cruise the way in which the photography works on a trip like this takes some getting used to each day we would aim to take two zodiac cruises that's a nice bag you have there Brendan sometimes we would stay in the Zodiac cruise around looking for wildlife in any areas of Interest the Expedition team was fantastic and would happily oblige anyone who wanted to check out possible compositions even macro bubbles in ice so we are now positioning the boat strategically around floating ice forget the mountains forget the wildlife it's all about a tiny piece of ice beneath the boat this is so much fun I don't know maybe it's just me but I find it fascinating how much texture color and Abstract patterns can be found in ice but not all of the photography was done from The Zodiacs sometimes we would make Landings which were great however svalbard is a dangerous place and carries a constant risk of polar bear attack so whenever on land we had to set an armed perimeter which made searching for compositions tricky but not impossible I'll go 24 mil and long exposure black and white oh um so even though we have bright blue skies and harsh sunlight with the use of a 10 stop filter and a black and white conversion and good composition you can create some quite meaningful stuff so that's what we're doing and I think that is it still attend stop that is a 10 star problem is I have 10 stop glasses on so I can't see anything so I'm just including a ton of Sky there's nothing in the sky but all that does is bring emphasis on the contrast which is the the jaggedy mountains and we've got a 10-stop filter just to totally kill the water dead well I might not have completely killed the water dead but I did make the right choice by going for a black and white on this incredibly high contrast Blue Sky day almost perfect conditions for black and white photography connect so if you look uh you know we're throwing some b-roll but if you look to the towards the sun all of the mountains on the other side of the Fjord are retracting all this cloud and it's fantastic so it's beautiful Cloud on these mountains and then we have these these small Islands these rocks kind of scattered towards the mountain so although it's quite chaotic it's there is a path through the islands leading to the mountains and the whole scene looked just looks the basically was completely opposite of what I've just shot but yeah hopefully uh just as nice of an image and what focal link [Music] 40 millimeters 40 mil yeah foreign spoken Irishman who caught me out with my focal lengths is Neil Neil's a great photographer and a great filmmaker so I'd encourage you to go and check him out on Instagram he helped out a lot with filming on this trip he also did a front flip off a zodiac into minus one degree Celsius water but we'll get on to that later on now Zodiacs are great for photography and apparently doing front flips off but for me some of the best photography was actually from the ship itself there were no polar bears to worry about and we had ample space and the surrounding scenery was constantly changing which would offer new photo opportunities every 15 minutes so I'd say it's currently dinner time and we're all supposed to be sat down eating dinner but as these things are as soon as um it's the most awkward time the best scene presents itself and uh thank you very much sir so we're all trying to grab a shot and we're going to be well Overexposed bear with me yeah we've all come out to take this shot because it's absolutely beautiful finally we have some cloud and some atmosphere tell you what I'll take this weather so I have blue skies days and it's been torturing me and now we have this which is exactly what I was wrong before shooting from the boat epic conditions and yeah it's easily the best image of the trip and it's all spontaneous and hopefully there'll be more of this going forward very happy very happy very happy foreign [Music] so whilst we're still out at Sea I thought I'd give you a tour of the ship show you our accommodations and what's on board if there is very rugged I'm not sure how much he's changed since it was built in the 80s but anyway let me let me show you what the highlights shall we say the highlights of the ship the ship that we're sailing on is the polar Pioneer which was built in Finland for the Russians in 1982. now what's great about this ship is that it has an ice class of 1A super which basically means this has a strengthened Hull and can get itself through some incredibly thick ice which pays dividends later in the trip so this is my room I have a couple of bunk beds a little wardrobe my desk which is just pure chaos and then we have a lovely view out of the window which uh yeah quite nice uh views every now and then and here is my bathroom which is okay to be honest it's even a shower in here we go down here the Expedition Lounge this is where all of the lectures happen which I believe there's one going on now it's also where we all drink our beer in the evening foreign [Music] don't want to disturb them too much there's a lecture about Galatians going on let's go down the stairs this is where we have breakfast lunch and dinner I'm doing a walking walking talk around the ship where's the gym oh this is this is Neil hi Neil Neil's uh Neil's helping with the video is also doing I don't know maybe this is more appropriate yeah Neil's helping with the video he's also doing photography stuff helping with the clients helping their photography all around good Workhorse is replacing brex now uh-oh [Laughter] right so here we have the the gym I can't I didn't know that there was a gym on the boat which is kind of cool hello everybody [Music] all right so there is a a bit of a drill when it comes to getting off the ship it's not as straightforward as I I hoped it would be so in order to get into the zodiacs everybody must be wearing waterproof trousers the next thing that you have to wear when getting off the boat into a zodiac is a pair of Wellies and that's yeah because when you get out the Zodiac you've got to basically walk through a few inches maybe up to a foot of water third and final thing that you have to do is put this on but of course I'm going to need a jacket before I put this on a line I'll freeze to death [Music] oh [Music] I am now ready to get onto a zodiac [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] three days in and the trip had been off to a fantastic start but as the skies darkened so did our Fortune there are many myths and superstitions whilst at Sea that can bring bad luck upon a ship for example no whistling No Bananas on board no women on board and never clink your glasses when drinking [Music] and I can't help but wonder if breaking all of these taboos may have changed our look you see initially we were supposed to be heading south east to this area but the bad weather came in forcing us to retreat North and making the next photography shoot very difficult but the challenging photography conditions were just the beginning of our problems [Music] [Music] did you do your expense no too wet yeah are we rolling yeah yeah it's miserable miserable location far from 30 seconds where the cloud party if the mountain ridges showed themselves there was a bit of light and from two hours of being wet cold and miserable one image was captured and it was probably my favorite image of the day by far yeah I throw it on screen now I didn't film it because uh it's too cold a miserable film I just thought this was a wasted trip but turns out to be brilliant so there you go opportunistic photography at its finest I do really like this image and it's one of my favorites of the trip so far but getting it was a real endurance Challenge and it was the first time on this trip that I had felt as if the photography was not there we were struggling we were wet and we were cold and yes we were very lucky to get that 30 second window of light but I sensed the mood amongst the group begin to dip and that was not helped by what happened next on the ship well good morning everybody it is the morning of day five and we've just woken up to an early announcement at about six o'clock saying that the engines have failed and we've had to return back to longibian this is not good news so we've had engine problems it wasn't safe to continue right now we should be waking up in the far north approaching the pack ice but instead we're waking up in longibian and we're gonna have a briefing in about two hours so at this stage well I don't think anybody knows what's gonna happen but keep our fingers crossed that it's an easy problem maybe spend a few hours get it fixed continue on but the reality is this might be the end of the trip after only four days of sailing so yeah I don't know we'll see what happens it's not good it's bad basically last night at some point that engine stopped and he was saying that if we were in a storm it would be like a chance of a total loss of control of the ship so it's super dangerous but the big problem is there's no engineers in town so they're having to try to find one to fly in from either trumps or Oslo best case scenario we leave the next day but there's a good chance that even that third day which would be the 12th we're still stuck here so as you can see behind me that is long gibian not ideal but it's kind of what can you do in these situations we had the briefing today from the Expedition leaders and the ship's Captain the good news is that today's Saturday and we do have an engineer coming out so with a bit of luck we'll have the problem sorted and maybe tomorrow we will be back on our way North so we might be stranded in longibin for the time being but that doesn't mean we're short of Adventures because yeah we're doing a zodiac tour this is where we'll find the bear yeah the entire of the island and there'll be one walking down Main Street we're gonna discover the local gems of long even and I'm confident look determined shall we say to make something make an image from this boat trip well I'm gonna be honest with you when you go on a polar expedition to svalbard this location isn't exactly what one might picture in their Mind's Eye shall we say muddy close to town about as far away from a polar Wilderness as you can imagine an all-around uninspiring however despite this everybody's Spirits were high and everybody was determined to make an image which just goes to show that there are photographs everywhere so we uh walk you back to the boats after a nice walk but not necessarily the best photography uh location and just spotted this stretch of river that seems to be alive because there are thousands of Bubbles and some green color and this 24-70 seems to focus from like inches away so it's almost macro so we're all taking advantage and getting excited about the Bubbles nothing wrong with that [Music] look behind me there they are raising the anchor which is fantastic news the engineer has come his on board he's done some tests we are gonna start sailing North and as we sail North we're going to continue to do tests but the good news is the engineer is going to stay with us and all being well the tests are fine and we continue to push North into the pack ice we're gonna go full beans now so uh I feel like I feel like everything up to now has just been an appetizer and what's about to come is going to be the main course fingers crossed anyway no more problems flipping egg after what had been a long 24 hours I went to bed with an element of uncertainty worried that we would wake up once again in longibian but I'm happy to report that we woke up to one of the most breathtaking sights I have ever seen in my life [Music] [Laughter] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Music] so this is a class 1a Icebreaker ship I believe uh don't quote me on that now I have broke out the 14 to 24 so I could capture hang on bear with me I've gotta gotta see this it's unreal yeah because how good does that look so I've got the 14 mil I'm literally hanging very carefully hanging over the side of the ship photographing ice pack with mountainous glacial backdrops man it's a lot of fun first experience brand new experience and I love it and everyone there's people scattered all over the ship having a great time now this is what I had in mind when setting off on a photography Expedition around svalbard [Music] [Music] oh [Music] I feel like this is a great time to say a massive thank you to Pete one of the Expedition team members who had the appropriate drone licenses and was able to fly and capture some of this incredible footage and generously allowed me to use it in this video adding so much value so please check the link in the description below for Pete's Instagram and let me tell you this his Wildlife photography is incredible foreign about being here right now for about five years in amongst the Packers surrounded by beautiful mountains and Wildlife and I'm so happy to finally be here but it's not all about photography I have another responsibility I'm also on polar bear watch along with about seven other people so with a bit of look we might just spot one I've seen seals I've seen bear prints in the snow on the icebergs but no bears as of yet and to be honest it does kind of feel like looking for a needle in a haystack but I don't know I'm keeping my hopes up [Music] so just a heads up I've just been told we have a PB situation by this chap it's all on YouTube I didn't see them yet okay so apparently they're really far away but let's go see this could be it put it in the crop factor to see him so I see two there wow I can actually see them because it's face all right updates on the bear situation definitely Three Bears very very far away one of them's eating probably a seal but they are really far away so I got a little bit of video footage which I'll overlay now which was kind of cool and I did take a couple of shots but um I think we have I don't I don't know if we'll get any closer because they're on the fast ice and it's illegal for us to break through the fast ice it's very tough call but I think I'm gonna go to bed and it's very very difficult for me to leave behind this beautiful beautiful environment but it'll still be here when I wake up in a few hours and with fingers crossed but look the polar bears will also be closer so we might very well get a wake-up call in the middle of the night saying the Bears are coming closer and they have a kill I don't think they're going anywhere so I think we're going to set up camp here and just keep eyes on them probably for the next day or so we need to go to bed well good morning everybody we're on the move not very far but hopefully closer to the polar bears go and have a look okay thank you very much thank you tension on the ship is palpable I think we were at about three megapixels per bear before I think we're up to eight now so we're getting closer oh this is just non-stop excitement two bears running across the ice actually at one point walking towards us and they're the closest they've been and they're actually getting some really nice images minimalist landscape images legitimately like a photograph I would go for we got you know regardless it's not just doing it because they're far away um environmental Landscapes environmental portrait environmental Wildlife shots that's what we call them man they look great super happy right now really happy yeah it's great and everyone's just everyone's on High Spirits running around there's no tension no one's jostling for space there's plenty of space it's not really a busy ship at all good number of people yeah very happy with this foreign [Music] [Music] as I just mentioned this is the type of wildlife photograph that I would go for regardless if the bear is close or not I think including the environment can be a very powerful asset but what happened next absolutely blew my mind [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right just the moment I've been dreading the most or maybe I've been looking forward to it I don't know but we are at 80 degrees north and we're doing a Polar Plunge so I do enjoy a bit of Cold Water swimming but I have to tell you this will be the coldest all good fun and nothing to do with photography but when you're having an experience like this you've just got to do these things I think you'll regret it if you don't so oh goodness no unless you're Swedish so this is just a daily routine for you yeah you would say that but I live in Ecuador or no hot problems it looks way older how much older do I look without a hat it looks way older I think I look prettier the worrying thing for me is that everybody just seems so good at this no reaction I'm gonna struggle first up to the platform we have Jonas perel with a classic Swedish dive there no problems here for the big Swede who makes a calm and collected exit next up Brendan vanson with well what looks like a bomb but turned into some sort of Buddha pose yeah I felt a lack of commitment to that bomb rewind the tape and his face says it all next up is yours truly opting for the same technique as Brendan but can we execute it with more height and more tuckage right oh that was an excellent performance but my exit was disappointing with a certain loss of control as I scrambled to get out of the minus one degree Celsius water finally we have Neil Arthur's here not quite sure what he's gonna do as he's not able to access the platform oh wait what's this Neil offers has done a front flip off the bow of the zodiac this is incredible and by far the best entry into the water that we have seen and look at this floating on his back cool as a cucumber Neil Arthur's wins Ebola plunge competition oh yes now I thought the polar bears would Mark the end of the trip and thus at the end of the video but my gosh was I wrong because we have so much more to come including some of the best landscape photography I've had in a long time and the mighty walrus are we doing this now on video [Music] thank you [Music] say this is by far the most insane and most productive zodiac groups we've done on this whole trip I've taken about 500 photographs so is everyone in here we've been scrambling around each of us sharing compositions it's just mind is being blown and everywhere you look there are images and no exaggeration everywhere what's going on what's going on now oh my God okay oh okay wow immediately I hope so oh my god wow [Music] thank you [Music] now there's no getting around it this was a sloppy location man talk about thick wet mud [Music] but I guess that's what the walrus love and they position themselves beautifully in front of this mountainous backdrop with the glacier [Music] now if you thought our encounter with the polar bear and the walrus were special well I'm Gonna Save the best until last we have about at least 50 Beluga surrounding whales yeah I did several hundred [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you well we are sailing back to longibian it's going to be a 14-hour journey and I think it's gonna be a bit rough so I am not looking forward to that now if you've enjoyed this video we're probably going to do this trip again next year on the same ship so if you want to know if you know if you want information about that sign up so I'm a newsletter I'm sure we'll announce something although the thing has been confirmed and stick around just for another minute or so because I'm going to show all the images from this trip more than what you've seen so far in this video because yeah there's a lot it's been a fruitful trip but finally I'd just like to thank today's sponsor which is Squarespace now if you don't know who Squarespace are they're an all-in-one website building platform so as a photographer you're going to want your own website with your own domain a nice online Gallery maybe an online store to sell your prints or books or calendars or anything like that where you can do it all through Squarespace it's dead easy it manage you all yourself use their intuitive drag and drop system Beauty full template and you'll have a professional looking website in no time at all it's so easy anyone can do it they've got 24 7 customer care but as I say more or less every Squarespace plus the video if you get stuck go on YouTube there's a ton of resources on YouTube and within no time you'll knock out a professional looking website so I've got squarespace.com and you get free try and if you like free trial use the offer code Heaton for 10 off your first purchase I'm freezing and I'm done man it's been a long trip so enjoy these images from what has been a trip that's been a long time coming yeah awesome see you next time guys cheers bye bye [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] all right [Music] foreign [Music] I hope you enjoyed this week's video on my website I have two books available for purchase and I'll leave links in the description below thank you for watching and I will see you all hopefully next week [Music] thank you foreign

Channel: Thomas Heaton

Views: 132,385

Keywords: landscape photography, outdoor photography, landscape photography tutorial, landscape photography in the field, photography tips, best photo locations, how to landscape photography, hiking, outdoors, hasselblad xiid, Nikon z8, svalbard

Id: DUOuwQKEVcc

Length: 41min 13sec (2473 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023