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The Titanic Course!

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Peter Cairns3 Comments

In our final report from Arctic Norway, correspondent John Cumberland has to get used to the idea of doing as he’s told – a radical concept indeed!

At the beginning of our Arctic voyage Swedish Captain Dan invited us to join him on the bridge at any time. First Officer Emil was similarly welcoming.

As you would expect, the bridge is an excellent viewing platform and warmer than other parts of the ship and so one took advantage of the kind offer, especially after a chilly morning pounding the decks ‘shooting’ polar bears. After a few days one was allowed to ‘do things’.

“Would you like to steer the ship?” suggested Emil on a misty afternoon sailing between some of Svalbard’s dark brown islands.

“Of course”! was my instant reply.

After gently rotating the surprisingly small dial, the ship obediently set off on course 031.

Cairns and Hamblin and fellow passengers were sipping tea downstairs in the ‘saloon’ and blithely unaware that the ship and ‘The Plan’ had been hijacked by a presumptuous course attendee. As the newly appointed (unofficial) ‘second officer’ and having duly set the course, I thought it wise to check the blue radar screen, especially as the sea mist continued to provide a soft background to the seascape, but not superb visibility.

There, slap bang in the middle of our course, appeared a large rectangular obstacle on the radar.

“What is that?” I enquired of our First Officer.

“Probably a large iceberg” he explained.

“So, we are on the Titanic course then?” I exclaimed.

“Ho, Ho! I have never heard it called that before!” tittered Emil.

At which point the large macho iceberg emerged from the mist.

“Ho, Ho, that is very funny” chuckled First Officer Emil.

A swift course correction seemed a more appropriate response and I modestly suggested course 034 to steer us to the starboard of the threatening iceberg.

“No, 029 to Port” contended our First Officer.

Now I don’t know about you, but as I had spotted the iceberg menace first and dubbed it the ‘Titanic course’ and had suggested the course correction, I felt my ‘vote’ should carry more weight in this matter than that of the First Officer. Who the hell did he think he was?

In exasperation, as the iceberg loomed even larger, I turned to the Captain and suggested a solution to this battle of wills: “Shouldn’t you arrest or shoot one of us (meaning the First Officer) to save the ship”? (the Captain held the key to a formidable arsenal of hunting weapons which belonged to the ship, so the shooting was more than a theoretical possibility!)

The surprisingly calm Captain ignored my advice and we continued at 10 knots on the potentially shipwrecking course 031. He took a sip of tea and pondered. The iceberg crept closer.

Those of you familiar with Maritime History will be aware that 12 April 2012 is the centenary of Titanic’s fatal voyage. You will also know that if the Captain had changed course earlier, disaster could have been avoided. Instead, Titanic scraped down the side of an iceberg, which was impregnated with boulders from a melting glacier and sheered off the heads of scores of rivets. The side of the ship simply popped open. We had photographed smaller icebergs like this a few days earlier.

Finally, almost at the last minute, our undemocratic First Officer seized the controls to the ‘bow thruster’ and neatly ‘side stepped’ our huge iceberg, which glided past in the mist.

No shots were fired and we were saved! I still think starboard 034 was the better option however. Damned stubborn these Swedes.

Note: Northshots sincerely hopes that the accounts of these seemingly frivolous events have not deterred any potential guests from joining us on future tours. If that turns out to be the case, we shall be speaking with Mr. Cumberland’s legal representatives.

Does a suicidal gannet constitute a ‘Wildlife Workshop’?

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Peter Cairns3 Comments

In the second of our special reports from Arctic Norway, correspondent John Cumberland philosophises about philosophy in a philosophical manner.

Location: Still in Svalbard, still August ’11

Floating about in the Zodiac, before Pete’s ‘cold shower’ moment, I was deeply moved by the pinky – brownie – diffused – ethereal light, which softly bathed the nearby icebergs. The serenity, the calm green water, the rich brown hills overlooking the enormous fjord, the crisp stripes of mist which wreathed around and in between them, the shafts of pale golden light sneaking between the peaks, our home, the M/S Origo, conveniently moored at the ‘golden mean’ for a perfectly composed shot. It was a landscape photographer’s heaven.

“This is an excellent landscape workshop” I commented to Pete. In a miffed tone he snapped: “This is a wildlife trip, we start landscapes in the autumn,” (it had been a while since we saw our last polar bear; he was tetchy). Now, we all love Glen Affric in its autumn finery, there is no doubt that it is a beautiful place, but this landscape, rather, icescape, is something else.

Pete twitched. “Fast starboard” he assertively instructed Captain Dan, our Zodiac driver. “Now slow, very slow”. We all strained to see what he was focused on. All I could see were kittiwakes. Now I like kittiwakes as much as the next man but they were hardly cause for the intense concentration that Pete was now displaying. He reached over the side (no, not yet, that was later) and promptly plucked a dead gannet from the water, holding it up triumphantly. It has to be said that it was a healthy-looking dead gannet, but definitely dead. You could tell. Yes, nice but dead.

“It’s a visual metaphor for life and death in the Arctic” said a philosophical Pete. “You should photograph it with its head pointing towards the hills.” (The word ‘metaphor’ was heard several times during this trip. I think it is part of the ‘Philosophy Module’, which comes free with Northshots photo-tours. Excellent value!)

I think by this time we’d spent too long at sea. As various members of our team leaned precariously over the side composing the dead gannet shot, Swedish Captain Dan (not a man renowned for his humour) piped up. “It reminds me of the Monty Python dead parrot sketch”. We all looked at Dan, then at each other.

‘Why is it here?’ asked one of our team.

‘It came here to commit suicide’ said an authoritative Captain Dan, even more surprisingly. Again, we looked at each other and pondered.

We saw what he was getting at. After all, it was a ‘Scandinavian Gannet’ and they do that kind of thing in Scandinavia, don’t they? It’s the long, dark winters. S.A.D. syndrome they call it…and too much Schnapps. They commit suicide. And so do their gannets.

We returned to the Origo with dead gannet pictures in the can. Pete was happy we’d seen the potential in a sopping wet dead bird, Dan was satisfied that his suspicions of our madness had been confirmed and we all enjoyed coffee and chocolate brownies. The gannet had not died in vain.

This was John Cumberland, Northshots News, The Arctic. Again.

Svalbard 2011.

Posted on August 31, 2011September 1, 2011 by Peter Cairns5 Comments

Picture the scene. We’re bobbing gently on a mirror-calm fjord surrounded by the most exquisite of ice sculptures, some reflecting myriad turquoise tones, others graphic in their design and transparency. Beyond, a series of jagged-toothed mountain tops are periodically caressed by delicate wisps of snow-white cloud as their bases are gnawed by glacial teeth, unrelenting for millennia. Periodically the constant pushing and heaving of ice delivers a thunderous crack and a slab of history the size of a tenement block, crashes into the aquamarine waters, stirring a wave that takes several minutes to reach us, by which time all is silent once more. “All we need now is a glass of red wine,” quips John C, one of our merry ‘class of Svalbard 2011’. And he’s right. The silence, solitude and sheer majesty of this primeval, evolving landscape is hard to improve upon, but yes John, a glass of vino would certainly round it off.

As ever our good ship Origo provided a warm and cosy bolt hole from the worst of the arctic weather and thanks to an excellent crew (great grub throughout), we never felt deprived of creature comforts even in this, one of the remotest places on earth. Despite one couple (sorry Bob & Anne) forgetting that an open cabin porthole in choppy seas, has inevitable consequences for the moisture content of bed linen and carpets, our group remained dry and warm throughout (well, not quite but more of that later).

Given the abundance of classic polar bear images from this part of the world, it’s easy to imagine that the largest land predator on earth is easy to find. Not so. We’re talking about a solitary animal that roams huge distances in search of food, spends much of its time holed up behind icebergs and can swim almost as inconspicuously as any otter. They are also white. And so is ice. You need to put yourself in the right habitat, spend some serious time on deck with a good pair of binoculars, but above all, you need some luck and the arctic can be a fickle friend.

We notched up 10 polar bear sightings and photographed 4. Disappointingly the ice pack was unusually far north and was hellbent on travelling even further north, depriving us of some time in prime polar bear habitat and we prematurely headed south following Plan B.

One of the other real characters of the arctic is the previously-persecuted walrus. Now bouncing back, these leviathans present the photographer with several challenges: they are uniformly brown, rarely awake and are found in places where the sun don’t shine. Apart from that they’re easy and we had two great sessions with a worthy support act of squabbling arctic terns in superb light.

The north can be cruel – light is hard to come by, weather is fickle and there are no migrating herds of wildebeest – the Masai Mara this ain’t. But when it’s good, it’s fantastic and if you accept the 90/10 rule (90% of the time there are no pictures to be taken), the 10% gets under your skin and lures you back time and time again.

Other highlights included particularly obliging bearded and ringed seals from the zodiacs and mirrored ice sculptures in perfect light. But for me, it’s not polar bears or seals or landscapes or mirror-calm reflections, it’s all of it rolled into one big spectacular life experience. It’s 12 months before I’ll be there again but I’m already counting the days. If you want to join us, you’d be welcome as there’s only one thing that tops Svalbard itself and that’s being there in good company. We were, so thanks to this year’s group – you were the glass of red wine that topped it off.

I mentioned staying dry. Of course this assumes that you avoid inadvertently taking a dip in the frigid arctic waters. I failed in that particular objective but more of that in a future post…

Red hot Iceland.

Posted on June 20, 2011June 21, 2011 by Peter Cairns9 Comments

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t do holidays. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. But no. If I’m not taking pictures there’s a good chance I shouldn’t be there in the first place. And so off to Iceland on holiday with my (tolerant) wife Amanda and my (not so tolerant) son Sam. And my camera.

Initially austere, even foreboding, Iceland quickly gets under your skin and casts its almost mythical spell. Forget any media hype about volcanoes going off (I’m proud to say that I can in fact pronounce the “E” word!), this is a big place with big skies and big potential.

Being a holiday we decided to restrict our travel to the south of the island taking in the geological icons of Reynisdrangar and the suite of waterfalls including Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss with its conveniently located fulmar colony. Further east Jokulsarlon lagoon is a must-see and is incongruous amidst the flat featureless coastal plains which skirt the Vatnajokull Glacier, Europe’s largest chunk of glacial ice.

OK my pictures are no better than what has been done before (a few more on the Northshots facebook page by the way) but for once, I’m not that bothered. Iceland is an experience. I can’t wait to return next year.

And just to prove I can almost do holidays, here’s Amanda at Iceland’s hottest tourist spot, The Blue Lagoon. In fairness it was a lot less touristy than I imagined and the ice creams are something else. I didn’t think it quite fair to inflict the locals with the sight of my ageing flesh but Amanda was less altruistic!

More than just a bog…a headache.

Posted on June 5, 2011June 6, 2011 by Peter Cairns2 Comments

Working up in the Flow country of northern Scotland recently, I was reminded why celebrated landscape photographers in say, Estonia or The Netherlands, are pretty thin on the ground. Capturing the essence of very flat landscapes is damned difficult. And along with 2020VISION colleagues Lorne & Fergus Gill, Rob Jordan and Mark Hamblin, I was aiming to capture more of ‘the essence’ of this wild place; to tell the story of why this is ‘More than just a bog.’

Basic ingredients: flat, wet ground and big skies – none of the foreground lochs and boulder-strewn moorlands of the classic Highland landscape; no rushing burns or mountain backdrops. In fact stripped of most of the usual contributory components, my head was sore from the constant scratching.

But work hard – and in this case, work together – and the story starts to unfold. Reviewing my initial images, I was disappointed but having secured several timelapse sequences, and knowing what was coming from the rest of the team, it all started to take shape.

This massive area of blanket bog – the most expansive of its kind anywhere – has a story to tell but it’s a story hidden in the layers of carbon-locking peat that make up its very existence. Those layers of peat draw on centuries of accumulated decaying vegetation – it’s an historical story. Yet the significance of peat bog as a carbon store is only just coming to the fore and it’s the future more than the past, that this wild place will influence. Photographically it’s not easy but the reasons for protecting it are manifest.

CALEDONIA on way…finally.

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Peter Cairns3 Comments

It’s been a bit of a haul this one! From an idea that started way back when, we’ve had false starts, funding letdowns and above all, just lots of other time-consuming things going on. But we’re there now and it’s shaping up to be a really nice book (and we’re planning a few side products too!).

Written by colleague Niall Benvie and illustrated by yours truly, CALEDONIA is an unashamed emotional plea for a fresh and more ambitious outlook towards forest restoration. That doesn’t mean that Scotland should be covered in trees tomorrow; it simply means we should perhaps take a renewed look at what the landscape can offer us against a backdrop of increasing biological uncertainty.

CALEDONIA will retail at £20 and will be available only from the NORTHSHOTS website (from June 23rd). Advance orders are being taken now (just e-mail Amanda). Corporate customers (ordering a minimum of 10 copies) can buy the book for just £12-95 per copy. Branded books (with your logo on front cover) are available at the same price (min. order 100 units) but must be ordered before April 30 2011.

To get a feel for what CALEDONIA will look like, download our promo-flyer here.

Sex on 4 legs…or 2 wings.

Posted on January 5, 2011January 5, 2011 by Peter Cairns4 Comments

I know I’m not alone in search of the holy grail that is mainstream acceptance of the natural history image. Yes I know that conservation is more ‘popular’ than ever and that greetings cards of robins sell by the truckload. I’ve even noticed the trend for well established camera operators to become presenters, such is the appetite of a growing audience for contact with nature – virtual or otherwise.

But let’s be honest: it’s not mainstream, not really. Very little of what I or my contemporaries do, ever gets noticed beyond a very small niche audience. We’re simply not sexy enough. And so it was with great surprise (and cautious delight) that I picked up a copy of HELLO magazine recently (left at our holiday cottage I’ll have you know). Amongst all the glitz and the obscene conspicuous consumerism of the great and the good, an image from the Wild Wonders of Europe collection – yes, a natural history photograph in HELLO magazine! Right in there alongside a more than generous serving of designer-clad celebs sporting the latest shade of orange skin pigment.

So my quest for 2011 is to give thought (or should I say ‘more thought’) into translating this faint ember of hope into a raging inferno. Conservation has been historically conservative in its quest to sell itself. Perhaps 2011 is the year for nature photographers to prostitute ourselves; to do whatever it takes to be seen; to be conspicuous; to be less worthy; to make our subjects sexy.

Any ideas? A very safe and contented New Year to one and all.

Good enough for that French guy…

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Peter Cairns3 Comments

OK I’m a fan. He’s good looking with a French accent that Givenchy would die for and he takes some damned good images. Vincent Munier, wildlife photographer and annoyingly good bloke. As much as anything I love his wishy washy blue-cast winter images with no real punch, very little colour and therefore out of kilter with today’s demand for strong primary – often garish – colours.

I know his recent books have come in for a bit of criticism outside his native France, for what is perceived as dull and lifeless production. But I disagree. Yes they’re sombre but they’re full of atmosphere and intrigue; they almost put you there and doing that is what a good image does. Now I’m not French, good looking or blessed with anything other than a working class Midlands accent, but if wishy washy is good enough for Vincent, it’s good enough for me.

Extra Winter Wildlife anyone?

Posted on September 9, 2010December 3, 2010 by Peter CairnsLeave a Comment

Our Winter Wildlife photo-tours are all now fully booked but there is a possibility that we’ll be adding a further winter tour. Mountains & Moors will focus on the unique wildlife and landscapes of Scotland’s uplands – ptarmigan, mountain hare and red deer, as well as the spectacular landscapes of the Cairngorms and Inverpolly.

If you’re interested in booking a place, please do let us know as we’re presently gauging interest.

Dates are likely to be March 5-11 2011.

http://www.northshots.com/photo_tours_view.asp?ID=9

It’s all over.

Posted on August 25, 2010December 3, 2010 by Peter CairnsLeave a Comment

Tardy blog updates mean two things:

1. No new pictures to show.
2. No new pictures to show because I’ve not left the office.

Actually that’s not completely true but as cold air wafts through the office window, I reluctantly conclude that summer has passed me by and a new season is beckoning. To be fair August is a dreadful month in my book. Often wet, always midgy and little in the way of inspiration. So summer might have been a non-event but the wonderful hues of autumn are not far away – bring it on!