Boxing day stitch

Sunset over Orrevatnet Ramsar area, Rogaland.
(Please click image to enlarge)

The days after Christmas have been absolutely stunning, with hardly any wind and beautiful sunsets in southern Norway. It seems to continue into 2009, giving us a good start to the next year. The picture above is a stitch made from to images taken on Boxing Day. The two were developed with the same settings in Adobe Lightroom before they were stitched into one file in Photoshop. This gives me file sizes over 80 Mb, and great opportunities to produce large prints. I am using this technique ever more often, and really enjoy the quality of the output files. These pictures are really looking good on the wall.

I will start of 2009 with a portrait of my next guest photographer. The Finnish bird photographer and nature guide Jari Peltomäki, so stay tuned.

Happy holidays

My first year with the blog has been a success, and I am very happy to see that I already have a lot of followers. I would like to thank everyone that visits my site and a special thanks to those who comment on my posts and make this a dynamic blog. I would also like to thank all the great people who have given me great photo opportunities during the year, and to the guest photographers on my blog who have shared their pictures with us. Finnally I would also like to take the opportunity to send one very special thanks to my patient wife Irene.

With this night shot from last winter in Bykle, Norway, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Vultures of the Southern Ocean

Northern Giant Petrel (Macronectes halli) in threat posture South Georgia, Antarctica.
Canon EOS1D Mark III, 70-200mm, f/2,8, 1/400sek @ f/3,5, ISO50

I have been working a lot with my images from the Antarctic trip lately and I seem to return to certain pictures. Lately I have stopped at the images from an intense session with fighting Southern and Northern Giant Petrels. An elephant seal cub carcass was drifting in the surf and the vultures of the southern ocean were going absolutely crazy. Everything was going really fast with the waves crashing in, always changing the scene, while elephant seal males was fighting over the females right next to the bird action. This is the type of photography I like; fast action, behaviour and quick shifting of motives. After such a session it is always interesting to look at the result because you don't really have as good control as you usually do in more controlled situations. This particular session gave me some really nice shots and I hope that I have succeeded in conveying this action to you.

Giant Petrels (Macronectes halli) and Subantarctic Skua (Catharacta antarctica lonnbergi) fighting, South Georgia, Antarctica.
Canon EOS1Ds Mark II, 17-40mm, f/4, 1/13sek @ f/22, ISO100

Northern Giant Petrel (Macronectes halli) in threat posture South Georgia, Antarctica.
Canon EOS1D Mark III, 70-200mm, f/2,8, 1/640sek @ f/3,5, ISO50

Argentina

Sunrise over the Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
Canon EOS 1D Mark III, 70-200mm, f/2,8, 1/250 @ f/4, ISO 250.

While working my way through the thousands of pictures from my latest trip, I found a couple of images that concluded my journey. Our boat entered the Beagle Channel during the night and I got up early in the morning to photograph the sunrise and get my first sight of Tierra del Fuego. Shortly after the arrival to Ushuaia we flew to Buenos Aires where we spent a couple of nights. BA was an amazing city, but I was still hungry for some more wildlife and we found a nature reserve with lots of exotic species. During the two days I photographer many brilliantly coloured birds, but the highlight was when a Argentine Black and White Tegu came strolling along the bushes. I got in front of it and lay down on my stomach. The lizard wase just over one meter long and I only realized its size when it stopped a couple of meters away. At that moment it was way to close for my 500mm, so we just stared at each other for a few seconds before it continued into the forest.

Argentine Black and White Tegu (Tupinambis merianae), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Canon EOS 1D Mark III, 500mm, f/4, 1/3200 @ f/4, ISO 200.

PS! Thanks to Ramón Casares and his mate Matias Romano for useful tips and help with naming the bird species I had never seen before. www.ramoncasares.net

Coastal rocks

Coastal rocks in Rogaland, Norway
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, 17-40, f/4, 5 sek @ f/22, ISO 100, Hoya polarizer

During the last two weeks I have mostly spent my time in front of the computer, working my way through thousands of images in Adobe Lightroom. Not only have I tons of new images from my last trip, but I have also decided to change my workflow. This means I have an enormous amount of images that need to be moved and re-indexed. It seems this new system will make the workflow easier in the future, and I will gain from this shift.

This weekend, however, I took some time out in the field and took my first pictures in a couple of weeks. It felt good. The light was nice and soft in the afternoon, and I was working with some interesting shapes on some coastal rocks next to my house. The low light and the reflection from the blue sky made the water in the rock crack shine as if you could see the inside of it. I hope you like it as much as I do.

A crack in the coastal rock exposes the soft blue inside of the rock ;-)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, 17-40, f/4, 13 sek @ f/22, ISO 50, Hoya polarizer

Putting the equipment to the test

Good boots is a necessity when photographing albatrosses from the boat.
Foto: Bjørn Einrem

Photography in the Arctic and Antarctic can be quit hard on the equipment. A lot of my companions on my latest trip to the Antarctic were struggling with their camera in the cold and wet climate. To be honest - I am never careful with my gear. The camera is a tool, and I have paid a lot of money for it to handle rough conditions. And it did. At least most of it did. My flash was struggling for a while and one of my polarizer filters was temporarily broken by an inquisitive King Penguin chick. My travelling companion Bjørn Einrem has been kind enough to lend me a couple of his pictures to show what dangers are lurking in these environments for a nature photographer. Salt water and snow filled with sand - can it get any worse? I was using Kata protection for my camera, supplied by my pro-dealer Stavanger Foto. This was quit useful, though I found it a little hard to attach and it did affect the handling of the key buttons on the camera and lens. But at least it held the snow out during the worst blizzards.

Kata protection does help to some extent on my 1d Mark III - my 1Ds on the other hand...

Foto: Bjørn Einrem