Icebergs and ice are an increasingly important topic in recent years, as climate change is becoming more of a resounding, everyday issue. On a recent trip to Antarctica I developed a personal project of capturing the ice in as artistic of a way as possible. During the day, cruise ship passengers disembarked in Zodiacs to go ashore and view penguins. I have photographed a lot of penguins, so my mission became the ice that was floating in the vicinity. On this particular trip I asked a Zodiac driver to take me over to a distant iceberg that I could see towering over all of the other icebergs. It looked almost like a cathedral, standing out there over a 150 feet above its surrounding neighbors.
iceberg image 1
This first image shows the dramatic angle of the pinnacle of ice as it’s surrounded by smaller icebergs. As usual I circled my subject and look at it from all angles before settling on an image.
iceberg image 2
As we travel around the iceberg it takes on a slightly different shape. This new vantage point allows me to incorporate more of the surrounding icebergs in the foreground.
iceberg image 3
With image number three I am able to incorporate a foreground “bergie bit” (little piece of iceberg) that is found floating around its larger cousins. I am using a 16-35mm wide angle zoom lens and a polarizer to compose this image. My main objective is to balance the foreground ice with the iceberg in the distance.
iceberg image 4
I put on my 70-200mm zoom and circled back around to the location where I captured my initial composition in image 1. I chose to shoot a vertical to emphasize the vertical sweep of this dramatic iceberg.
iceberg image 5
I noticed a distant iceberg with an arch and directed the Zodiac to it. As we headed over to it I put my wide angle zoom back on. I circled this iceberg looking for a point of view in which to include with my initial perspective.
iceberg image 6
This composition reveals the first iceberg in a very beautiful way. I also love the way the green arch surrounds the distant blue icebergs, and how the wide angle gives the image a nice perspective by incorporating some of the blue green ice just below the surface.
iceberg image 7
I decided to go back to my 70-200 to try to pull in that distant iceberg. This lens allowed me to compress the scene while still keeping the strong foreground element of the arched iceberg in my composition. However, because I am further away now, you can see the blue sky above the arched iceberg. I have lost the drama that I had with the last image.
iceberg image 8
I zoomed in to try and eliminate the sky from the previous shot,but in doing so I have lost the top of the distant iceberg.
iceberg image 9
This is my favorite image in the series. It conveys the drama of the arch, it frames the iceberg in the distance perfectly, and it has a nice sense of color with the blues and greens.
The result is 3 or 4 distinctly different compositions of the same iceberg, which demonstrates how perseverance and a change of perspective can yield a stronger set of images.
This, the first series of images in a new section on our blog, involves Kazakh eagle hunters in western Mongolia.
These are a very strong people that have a strong sense of culture. One of those cultural icons is hunting with eagles. I wanted to get a shot that really conveys the sense of spacious land in Mongolia, the power of the eagle, and the traditional dress that seems to be seen less and less in the historical cultures of the world today. This first photo basically establishes where we are – two eagle hunters, a horse, and the eagle traversing an open slope on the border of western Mongolia and Kazakhstan.
In this second photo you actually see how close I am to my subjects. I am using my Canon 1Ds Mark III camera with a 16-35 wide angle zoom lens, which allows me to include a strong foreground subject (the hunters) as well as the dramatic sky in the distance. Also note that the light looks a bit flat in this shot, but from the viewpoint from which I am taking the photo things look completely different.
In my third image, which is at a right angle to the direction of the sun, I have attached a polarizer to my wide angle. You can see how much more dramatic the light appears. This image also highlights the problems of working with dramatic light – very harsh shadows were cast every time the eagle moved its wings.
The result is that I don’t have nearly the problems of the previous images with the shadows. This is a very satisfying image to me, but in an effort to see what else is achievable, I begin working the scene a bit more.
I’m standing at eye level again with the hunters, but the problem with this shot is that the man closet to me is staring straight at me. I try to maintain a little anonymity when I am taking pictures, and would prefer that the subject is not staring straight into my camera.
I ask him to look straight ahead, but now with movement of doing so, the eagle is staring straight at me. This isn’t necessarily a bad composition, but I would prefer the eagle in a different position.
I move a little bit further around and discover I love the way the light is falling across the main eagle hunter and his beautiful fox fur hat. However, as you can see, I have moved in too close to get all three in the frame.
I decide to back off a little bit, and now I am getting what I am looking for. I love the fact that the man in the middle is kind of looking my way, the assistant is looking off to his left, and the eagle is conversely looking off in the opposite direction. There is a nice balance to this image, with no shadows on their faces. In addition, the eagle has nice light on his eye. This to me is a winner.
I also like this last photo because it has a nice sense to it; the eagle is looking further opposite now, and is even more absorbed in what is going on in the landscape, rather than in what the photographer is busy trying to achieve. Both of these final two images are very strong photos for me, and I am very happy with the results:
good balance of compositon, dramatic light, openness of the land, traditional wardrobes – it all comes together in a very nice way in these last two images.
