Southern SojournJohn Luck bundles up for a return trip to the Antarctic with the Tamron 18-270mm all-in-one zoom lens. |
Article By Jennifer Gidman Images by John Luck |
In March 1912, explorer Robert Falcon Scott, along with four of his comrades, perished from starvation and extreme cold after failing to be the first humans to reach the South Pole (they made it to the Pole but were dismayed to find that Norwegian Roald Amundsen’s expedition team had made it there first). Next year, on the 100th anniversary of Scott’s death, environmentalist and polar explorer Robert Swan will attempt to re-create portions of Scott’s final trek (depending on available funding and logistics) using only renewable-energy supplies — and photographer John Luck will be there to document the historic event. |
Luck is no stranger to the Antarctic tundra: He’s ventured to the southernmost continent more than 10 times, including two trips this year with Swan’s 2041 group, dedicated to the preservation of Antarctica through the promotion of recycling, renewable energy, and sustainability. As the resident photographer/EMT, Luck explained how the trips this year served as reconnaissance journeys to prepare Swan for next year’s risky mission. “Swan’s plan is to retrace the entire route, and hopefully survive, using only renewable energy, such as solar panels, wind generators, and new-generation batteries that are smaller, lighter and hold power better than traditional batteries,” explains Luck. “Our expeditions this time around were meant to test this equipment and see how they hold up in the wind and cold temperatures.” |
Back to Below Freezing |
The first of the two back-to-back trips in March, in which Luck was able to revisit and photograph some of his favorite Antarctic haunts, hosted a bunch of students, educators, and leaders from various industries, according to Luck. The second trip featured a group from the American Council for Renewable Energy. “We had a symposium on the ship,” says Luck. “There were folks from all sorts of renewable-energy companies, from utilities to manufacturers. You can talk about Antarctica in a boardroom, but getting a real feel for it in person is totally different.” |
To start their journey to the world’s iciest and windiest desert, Luck’s group flew to Buenos Aires; from there they traveled to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. “Then we headed down the Beagle Channel in our ship and crossed the Drake Passage — it took between two to three days to cross the passage alone,” says Luck. “Finally, we hit the Antarctic Peninsula and the continent itself.” |
A few things were different on these trips than his previous Antarctica expeditions. “First of all, my EMT skills were put to the test before we even got on the ship: One of our group got hit by a car in Ushuaia,” says Luck. “Luckily, there was no lasting damage and he was able to make the rest of the trip. Photographers are a dime a dozen, but there aren’t many photographers who are also EMTs — that’s the main reason I’m out there!” |
Not only was this the first Antarctic expedition Luck had been on where not a single person brought a film camera (“most of what I was doing in the evenings was giving tutorials on the digital cameras”) — he also noticed a plethora of participants taking video as well as still images. “Practically every prosumer DSLR has HD video capability on it,” he says. “However, it’s a whole different skill set that’s needed to shoot video. You don’t swing or pan the lens quickly, for example, like you do with a regular camera. I recommend that if you’re going to tap into this feature, learn how to effectively shoot video. You then have to decide ahead of time when you’re heading out whether you’re going to be shooting stills or video and plan accordingly. You’ll bore people just as quickly with a bad live-action video as you will with bad photos!” |
The roving photographers usually launched their Zodiac boats early in the morning to explore the ice floes and fjords. “Mornings and late afternoons were the best times to venture out to get the most dramatic color rendition — especially that stunning blue ice,” Luck says. “The Antarctic at noon isn’t great for photographers with all that harsh overhead light.” |
Even though Luck brought along a few different lenses, the Tamron 18-270mm was the one that stayed on his camera the most. “You definitely don’t want to be switching lenses in the Zodiac,” he explains. “This isn’t the type of expedition where you have an assistant handing you lenses. You have to do everything yourself, with water splashing everywhere. You want to commit to a lens before you get on the boat.” |
The versatile 18-270 served Luck well. “With that lens, I could get relatively close up to whatever was around me in the Zodiac, but then also zoom out,” he says. “That much range packed into such a lightweight lens is really amazing.” |
The Vibration Compensation (VC) feature on the lens also proved indispensable in the Arctic wild. “The VC is an absolute must, even if you're in quiet waters,” says Luck. “Even just the vibration of the boat’s motor is definitely visible when you take a photograph. I was on the Zodiac with a lot of other people who didn’t have the VC feature, and when we looked at all of our images later on the computer screen, the motion blur in their images was quite obvious.” |
Luck noticed a lot more wildlife in front of his lens this time around. “For reasons I’m not privy to, the wildlife was much more active, even though it was the same season I’ve gone before,” he says. “There were the penguins, of course. The most common species out there are the Gentoo, Chinstrap, and Adelie penguins. During hatching season, they come to shore, breed, and hatch their eggs. The young then have to acquire enough fat and feathers to get back in the icy water; otherwise, they’ll die of hypothermia. When we were there, even though it was already past their hatching season and many had headed out to sea, there were still a good number of penguins just waiting to enter the water.” |
Sperm and minke whales were also out in full force for once-in-a-lifetime photographic opportunities. “In the past, if I had a black speck in a photo, if you really squinted you’d be able to make out the fact that it was a minke whale,” says Luck. “This time I was able to delete pictures like that: There were so many whales just approaching the Zodiacs and surfacing, so I was able to get a lot of up-close photos.” |
This abundance of quick-moving wildlife vying to get in front of the travelers’ viewfinders led Luck to reemphasize a photographic basic he stresses to his students each and every Antarctic trip. “You have to know how to use your camera before you come on this type of journey,” he says. “There were so many people on this trip, some of them with cameras that were better than mine, who had no clue how to use them. I wanted to say, ‘I should have that camera, not you!’ If you’re in a Zodiac and the whales are spy-hopping — when they come up vertically about a quarter-length above the water to scan from horizon to horizon — you have to already have your camera raised and ready to shoot. You only have a second to get the shot. If you don’t have your camera turned on, don’t know what your settings are, don’t know where your focal points are — you’re going to miss amazing shots.” |
Having your camera ready to capture those spy-hopping whales is an exercise in careful observation and planning. “What helped me before I even started taking pictures was to observe them in action as we were approaching them,” says Luck. “They have definite behavioral patterns where they surface every 15 seconds or so, maybe 30 feet from where they last surfaced. If you become aware of this pattern, you can have your camera pretty much on the correct spot 30 feet from their last surface — this increases your odds a hundredfold of getting the shot.” |
In general, Luck tries to shoot at 1/500th of a second for a shot like this when he’s in Shutter Priority. “That varies a lot,” he says. “With the newer cameras, you can crank up the ISO so you can shoot at 1/1000th of a second, even in lower light, with very little noise. If you're using Program or Automatic, the camera will try to pick a faster speed for you.” |
Luck’s aperture “sweet spot” using the Tamron 18-270 is typically f/8 or f/11. “However, I often try to shoot wide open for a number of reasons on a trip like this to blur out the background,” he says. “If I’m shooting a whale and there's a boat in the background while the whale's surfacing, I don't want that boat to be sharply focused. As a real informal rule, if I'm trying to get that 1/500th of a second shutter speed, I may have to open up that aperture more or increase the ISO.” |
Man Versus Glacier |
Although Luck appreciated the plentiful wildlife he was able to photograph, he wanted to do something a little different on this trip. Deception Island, a former whaling station located on an active volcano in the South Shetland Islands, gave him that opportunity. “I like to show the interaction of the natural world with humans,” he says. “Deception Island used to be huge — they processed more than a million whales there. There were huge boilers and drums and steam engines and all of this piping to liquefy the whale fat. Picture Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, and that’s kind of what the facility looked like.” |
Volcanic activity and an earthquake in 1968 devastated the facility, leaving it a mass of jumbled wreckage strewn over the deserted landscape. “Today you see the old boilers with rivets in them, just rusting away,” Luck says. “The boats that used to carry the water are just sinking deeper and deeper into the sand with each passing year. I loved photographing that hand of humanity in this wild place.” |
Luck’s photographs of the desolately beautiful whaling station, in combination with the tales of Robert Scott and the other explorers who succumbed to the unforgiving climate, underscore Antarctica’s magnificent but menacing nature. “Some people say that the Antarctic wants you dead,” says Luck. “I try not to anthropomorphize nature, but to me, the Antarctic doesn’t care if you live or die: It’s entirely indifferent to human beings. You can be the most hearty, do-it-yourselfer MacGyver type of person, but you can only live temporarily in Antarctica. You can’t grow crops there, there’s no vegetation. It’s the food you brought with you and the clothing on your back.” |
To see John Luck’s tips of what to bring on an Antarctic trip, how to protect your gear, and other tips, please see “Southern Exposure: How to Photograph in the Antarctic Region” from our May 2010 enewsletter. |