Gliding through a frozen world…..

Posted by Florian – April 19, 2010

Florian looks trhough a curtain of frozen needles inside the glacier cave, Svalbard.

With our guide Christopher we are getting the first impressions of the Svalbard landscape. With four teams of eager and highly energetic sled dogs we are heading out. The mountainous landscape is under a soft blanket of snow. The silence is interrupted only by the barking and yelping of the dog teams. We are planning to travel up to a glacier and enter through a narrow cave deep into the center of the frozen body of ice.

Sled dogs doing what they love the most, pulling!

The dogs had had a good rest before our trip and so the are ready to go. It is all that is on their mind. Everything needs to be tightly tied down on the sleds and before we give the go, we need to tie it down with a “ice hook” so that the dogs don`t take off with the sled by themselves. Once the sled is off the hook, the dogs take off like a bullet. The only way to slow the sled down is to push down on an iron plow-like break that digs itself into the snow.

Ice formations inside a glacier cave, Svalbar

Once the sled is on the go all the dogs are completely focused on pulling. Every individual wants to do its part and not lack behind. I guess that is what they are bread for. Pulling is what is on their mind. We make it up to the cave. I have little idea of what to expect. As my eyes start to adapt to the darkness I see a wonderful sculptured cave landscape. In some areas water must have melted late in the season and has created incredible ice sculptures. With my flashlight I am painting over the formations, leaving the curtain of my camera open for over one minute. The image that appears on the back of the viewfinder reminds me of a “Cathedral of Ice”.

As the water trickles inside, it glides over the icy surface and creates frozen needles hanging from the sealing of the cave. Svalbard

I had a small tripod with which it was easy to enter some of the narrow cavities. I used a cable release with a lock mechanism so I could keep have exposure times of 1 to 2 minutes. Another key was the more neutral colored LED light of my headlamp. It allowed for a more curate rendering of the colors.

Lonely

Posted by Florian – July 7, 2009

It is been a while since you have heard from me. After waiting for weeks for the weather to improve it suddenly all came together. We headed out on the arctic aerial expedition for the freedom to roam project. I am still in the middle of the whole adventure and just landed at Point Lonely. So how in the world would I have internet access? Point Lonely is a former Airforce Radar site. We had seen the landing strip as we had flown the coastline a few days before and took the opportunity at this point to “sit” the plane down and wait for the weather  and especially light to improve.We had no idea about what to expect or if even anyone was around. But quickly s.o. emerged from the bright red tower building and we were greated by a very nice foreman who turned out to be a bird biologist.  The entire camp is being disassembled and a lot of contaminated soil removed by a special crew.  We sat down in camp and learnt lots of interesting stories about birds and especially polar bears wondering along the coast. 

Anyway, this is the long story behind the reason why I have a few minutes of internet in the middle of nowhere – at Point Lonely. And it is the same story of just having a few moments. Over night the fog rolled in. Now I have to be on “standby” to be ready to jump into the plane any moment the fog will give us the chance to take off. If we cannot, I might have the chance to write for the coming hours (or days) about my experiences.

What I want to share with you in short: I have seen a Arctic landscape come alive with hundreds of thousands of caribou, watched wolves chase across the tundra, thousands of seals on the ice-sheet and a lonely polar bear wonder the pack ice. As we were buzzing along with the plane it sometimes was hard to absorb and process all the impressions right that very second. I am so glad to have the images to come back to, where a single moment is frozen in time. It will give me a chance to understand what ALL I have seen. My expedition is coming to an end in a few days and after a quick edit, I will share with you some of the incredible moments I have witnessed. For now I better step outside and see what the fog does ……..

GOT PATIENCE ???

Posted by Florian – June 26, 2009

Waiting Game - I am still stuck in the oil town of Prudhoe waiting for weather!

I often get asked about patience out in the field. In a way it needs to come with the job as a wildlife photographer, right? Am I specifically patient? Well, with certain things yeah, with other things I am not. I want to make them happen right away. Right now I am sitting in the oil-town of Prudhoe Bay. If you checked this blog a few days ago ….. yes I was already waiting then for the fog to clear and the wind to calm down. Guess what ….. the wind is still blowing and now it is not only foggy, but it is raining on top of that. Got patience? Well mine is challenged right now. I am wondering when and IF I will get a break here in the next days. I know the weather in the Brooks Range just 100 miles away is great, but I have the obligation to cover the coast. I need to stand by, to be able to react as soon as the weather changes and I can work with my pilot to cover Alaska`s Arctic Coast.

Well, this gives me time for internet stuff like my blog ……. Let me tell you about another patience story, when I was in a blind waiting for great image of a snowy owl up here in the arctic. I was hooked on the idea of this great image which kept me in a blind for several days - straight. Coming up…..

Over the Arctic Plains

Posted by Florian – June 23, 2009

Our support plane above the migrating Caribou

After flying hours below the layer of fog we see a silver lining at the horizon. We need to put the plane down on a gravel bar and set up camp for the night. My pilot Ken wants to look for a spot where we can get out of the wind. We are fighting a stiff breeze of 20 – 30 nots on the nose of the plane.

As we are flying further inland, the sun finally breaks through the layers of fog. In the far distance I see the brooks range. Dark clouds are hugging the mountains and create a dramatic backdrop for photographs. We follow a river drainage south as I see a group of caribou in the riverbed heading to climb a steep snowbank  to join their group up on the extended plains, where food is plentiful.

We swing around with the plane while I keep an eye on the group running up the step snowbank seemingly without effort. I am trying to caputre the images struggling to keep the horizon straight in the viewfinder while the pilot goes into  a steep bank and balances out the gusts of wind. After hours of flying through bad weather, there it is: A few seconds of action in wonderful golden arctic light.

Flying beyond the Arctic Circle

Posted by Florian – June 22, 2009

Rainshowers over the Brooks Range - Nikon D3x, 24-70mm f2.8 lens

We started our aerial expeditions heading north beyond the Arctic Circle. Coming from Fairbanks I met my pilots in Coldfoot and we flew west towards the National Petroleum Reserve. It is a vast landscape of open valleys soon turning into treeless tundra. Only willow bushes remain. Beneath us I see the trails that caribous have carved into the ground over decades and centuries. On the riverbeds we also see the tracks of grizzly bears and wolves.

Midnight on the Nigu River in the National Petroleum Reserve - Nikon D3x, 24-70mm f2.8 lens

On the gravel bars of the Nigu we find a spot to set down the bushplanes. It is a wonderful arctic night on the Nigu River. The sun never sets, but colors the mountaintops at the edge of the valley.