South Georgia and Antarctica 2016

South Georgia and Antarctica 2016

July 28, 2017 ·

Hans Strand

One and half year ago Kevin Raber emailed me and offered me a seat as a photography instructor on his and Luminous Landscape’s South Georgia and Antarctic Workshop. It was, of course, a no brainer and I said yes immediately. Now the one and half years have passed and so has the trip, and what a trip this was. Landscapes and wildlife you can only dream of. It is not an easy one though. First, you need to cross 1850 km of open water through the Scotia Sea to get to South Georgia. A voyage which can be demanding in terms of heavy seas. This time mother nature was kind to us. Four days of gentle rolling on a fairly smooth sea and there she was: South Georgia, with her 200 kilometers of jagged mountains, glaciers, and beaches with wildlife in abundance. For me, this island had been a dream since I was a teenager and at one stage I thought I would never be able to see it. Now the dream had come through and I had my bag full of top notch camera gear. A Hasselblad medium format camera and a Nikon with a full range of Zeiss lenses. To depict such a great wilderness in just one trip is like standing underneath The Niagara Falls with an empty Coca Cola bottle and trying to catch as much water as possible. This was a fact I realized almost at once. In the best of worlds, you should stop at every square meter of this island and make a photograph. Now we had 5 days and about 10 landings. The first one was at King Håkon Bay, the location for Ernest Shackelton’s landing after his heroic crossing from Elephant Island in 1916. Now 100 years later our landing was way less dramatic. With everything under control, we set our feet on the ground on November 14th. The place felt very much like Svalbard but on steroids. High mountains and a beach full of elephant seals, fur seals, and king penguins. For me being a landscape photographer I now had so much wildlife around me that I automatically also became a wildlife photographer. In almost every single landscape photograph the wildlife became an ingredient. On King Håkon Bay there was a thick carpet of tussock grass on the ground.

This grass looked fantastic and worked fine as a foreground for my landscape shots. The mountains and the sky was an amazing background and I did several compositions. Later in the evening, we were hit by a hurricane. The wind speed was a crazy 82 knots. Before the sea really hit us, the captain decided to take the ship into the shelter of a narrow bay. I slept like a baby during the night and I honestly never understood how bad the weather really was. The result of the storm was heavy swells and therefore we could not make a zodiac landing on Salisbury Plains and the penguin colony the following morning. Instead, we steamed south to the whaling stations Leith, Strömnes, and Grytviken.

We still have space on our February 2018 Fly Over The Drake – South Of The Circle Adventure Feb 1 – Feb 10, 2018 – Check It Out

Whale Oil Containers, Grytviken, South Georgia

The whaling history is a sad chapter of this beautiful island. Between 1904 and 1965, hundreds of thousands of whales were killed. Some species were almost wiped out to extinction. Thousands of tons of whale oil was extracted from the blubber and shipped to the industrial world as a lubricant. Finally, there were almost no whales left and the whaling industry came to an end. The whales are now protected but have still not recovered from the extensive hunt. In Grytviken I got lost with my cameras on rust and old machinery. Being a former engineer I like old machinery. However, the dark history behind the place also gave it a dark framing. Not very different from shooting a concentration camp from the second world war. In fact, these whaling towns were nothing but death factories. Let us hope that the whales will forgive us and that they in a near future will grow back to the numbers of the old days. The miss of the Salisbury Plain landing was easily compensated by a landing at St. Andrews Bay. The location of the largest king penguin colony in the world. An impressive 250 000 birds were trumpeting to salute us one early morning just before sunrise. This amazing place was like returning back to the time when man had not made any influence on earth and everything was pristine and untouched.

To take in the essence of the scenery was almost too much. So emotional to me that a tear showed up in the corner of my eye. Penguins were filling out the entire bay which was surrounded by the highest mountains of the island. In the west the highest of them all, Mount Paget with it snowy 2934 meter high peak. Right after landing we a had a gentle snowfall which gave the scenery an impressionistic look and softened our images. We climbed a ridge about 1,5 kilometers away from the landing site and from there we could overlook the whole bay. At sunrise the chicks, thousands of them dressed in a brown down fur were backlit and their silhouettes were glowing in yellow. Simply magnificent!

King Penguin Colony, St. Andrews Bay, South Georgia

We did a few more landings on the island shooting more wildlife before steaming southwest towards the Antarctic Peninsula. On the way, we stopped by at the Argentinian Scientific Base ‘Los Orcadas’ at the South Orkney Islands. A barren place surrounded by high mountains and a steep coastline. Simply one of the most isolated places I have ever visited. The people at the base all needed to have their appendixes taken out before going there. This to prevent problems if an infection should occur. At this location, in the middle of nowhere, there is simply no chance for a quick evacuation if you get severely sick. From The South Orkneys, we followed ”Iceberg Alley”, a stretch of The Southern Ocean where tabular icebergs are lined up one by one. Some icebergs measuring an amazing 1,5 kilometers in length. To shoot these giants is a difficult task though. There are so many components which need to come together to make a great iceberg shot and I can´t say that I made it. It was far easier to shoot icebergs later on, along the Antarctic Peninsula. The most important condition is calm water. This to get a reflection of the iceberg in the water. Also to see how it continues further down into the deep. A few days later I had a chance to shoot icebergs in the conditions I prefer. In both cases with calm seas. First during an absolutely stunning cruise with our ship near Portal Point and later from a zodiac on Cuverville Island. As often in my case, I used wide-angles lenses to get as much space and atmosphere as possible around them.

At Cuverville Island I also photographed the gentoo penguin colony. At this early time of the year, the ground was still covered by snow. Snow which here was colored red by the poo from the penguins. This colony of thousands of penguins standing in their red poo, surrounded by the cleanest nature on earth, was like a metaphor for a township in Africa. I stood there for a long time looking at this epic sight looking through the viewfinder. My image idea was to get a giant skua flying over the colony. However, this idea just took too long time to accomplish. My neck simply got too stiff and I finally gave up without accomplishing what I had been hoping for. Later looking at my images I found an image with exactly what I had been waiting for. I had simply taken an image without seeing the bird flying into my composition. The reason for a skua in the image was to symbolize the relationship between the Penguins and the skuas. The skuas are the top predator down here and they eat about 50% of the eggs and chicks from the colony.

We still have space on our February 2018 Fly Over The Drake – South Of The Circle Adventure Feb 1 – Feb 10, 2018 – Check It Out

Gentoo Penguin Colony, Cuverville Island, Antarctica

Before getting into the infamous Drake Passage we stopped by Deception Island. A huge volcanic caldera where you can enter with a ship. Once also a location for a whaling factory. Now the whaling station is abandoned and is decaying in the harsh climate. Here I shot more rusty machines and buildings. Maybe I will one day make a book on abandoned places from both Antarctica and the Arctic. I simply love shooting these remains from times before. The Drake Passage, the stretch of ocean between the Antarctic Peninsula and mainland South America, is a different animal. A savage and wild one. When entering, you immediately feel that the waves are getting higher and more serious. I must admit, for me being a land crab, it was a bit scary. Gradually the waves build up higher and higher. At the end of this 2-day voyage across the passage, they were as high as 10 meters. Thank God we had a good ship and a skilled captain. We cruised right against the monster waves and the speed was reduced to a moderate 4 knots. Now and then the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the boiling sea around us. It was a fantastic display. Never before had I experienced the sea this powerful and beautiful. I even managed to get a few decent wave shots before finding shelter in The Beagle Channel.

Traveling to South Georgia and Antarctica is a long voyage. Often over open waters. A trip where you will get closer to the elements of nature and also to your self. You have to adjust your own pace to the slow speed of the ship and take in the ocean with your senses. The ocean itself is fantastic. Shooting the ocean scapes was something I really enjoyed. Skies, horizons and water surfaces in constant transition. Sometimes the scenes were dramatic and sometimes quiet and subtle. Even the most open seas are sometimes flat and friendly. I especially remember one day when taking the zodiac from Gold Harbour back to the ship. The sky was filled with ”Mackerel Clouds” and they reflected nicely into the calm sea. Instead of returning to the ship we took off towards a single iceberg on the horizon. All of a sudden a flock of swimming king penguins came along the side of our zodiac. They jumped into the air ( the way they breathe ) and plunged back into to calm water again and again. I was in seascape shooting mode, concentrating on the cloud reflections when the Penguins came by and had an 18mm wide-angle lens on my camera. Perhaps not the ideal lens for wildlife photography, but now the image became a seascape with a penguin appearing as a small living element in the bottom left of my photograph. This instead of a shot of a jumping penguin. Maybe not too bad after all?

King Penguin, Gold Harbor, South Georgia

To Kevin Raber, I want to send my deepest gratitude for inviting me as a photography instructor on this fantastic expedition. I also want to thank the expedition team from Antarctica XXI for their professionalism and high ambitions taking us safely to the best spots at the best time of the day. Also a nice experience to meet with the other instructors. Watching their slide presentations and getting new inspiration. A special thank you to Carr Clifton who was my room mate and brought me food from the restaurant when I was seasick in my bed. The participants were all super nice and I made a lot of new friends I hope to see again in the future. Unfortunately, I was affected by sea sickness quite a few times and could then not full fill my obligations. Once I even had to stop in the middle of a slide show because of sea sickness. I was most likely the most sensitive person on the ship. Despite these problems I still consider this expedition being the trip of my life.

We still have space on our February 2018 Fly Over The Drake – South Of The Circle Adventure Feb 1 – Feb 10, 2018 – Check It Out

Hans Strand
July 2017

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Hans Strand

See all articles by Hans Strand

Hans Strand, born in 1955 in Marmaverken, Sweden. After a nine-year career in mechanical engineering, he decided to devote his life to landscape photography, which has been his long-held hobby and great passion. It’s a change he never regretted. Hans has always felt drawn to the untamed and manipulated emotions and expressions that he finds in nature. He often says: ”The wilderness is the mother of all living things. It is always true and never trivial”. Hans work takes him to diverse places worldwide; from polar deserts to steaming rain forests and expansive deserts. The internationally awarded landscape photography is seldom a portrait of a place, but an expression of forces that create and mold a landscape. His pictures, frozen in a static frame, still tell a story of movement, time and evolution. Lately, his photography has also taken a course away from the untouched and wild nature and focused more on people´s influences on ecosystems. Photographs of water pollution and the visual magic of manmade agricultural landscapes have become an important ingredient in his in recent work. Hans Strand is frequently published in international photo and art magazines and his work has created a worldwide following. Many enthusiasts want to learn from Hans, and he brings people on location for photo workshops, or meet his audience as a speaker at photography events. He has won thirteen international awards, including the Hasselblad Master Award in 2008. He has published seven books, often with themes relating to the environment and people’s relations to nature and landscapes. The two latest are Iceland Above and Below and Intimate I. After numerous exhibitions in Europe, his art work is now introduced to an American gallery audience. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife Carina and daughter Johanna. Apart from photography, he has a great passion for classical music and he is a lover of Burgundy wines.