Found Light
Focusing on the approach, the craft, and the intent rather than just the destination, Found Light documents what it takes to capture light worth keeping, from expedition ice and city streets to wildlife encounters and remote coastlines.
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The Drake Crossing: The Raw Power of the Southern Ocean
The return flight from King George Island was canceled. The forecast made it clear it wasn't happening for several days. So the Sylvia Earle pointed north and crossed the Drake Passage instead which, as it turned out, was something I had wanted since I was a kid watching documentaries about the roughest seas on the planet. This is what the crossing actually looks like: the swells, the birds, and the moment the Southern Ocean simply stopped.
Birds and Bergs
From a zodiac in Antarctica, the iceberg is the composition and the bird is the variable. This is a post about waiting for the alignment — and what the grey sky is actually doing for you when it arrives.
Punta Arenas: The Last Stop Before Antarctica
Before Antarctica, there was Punta Arenas — a port city at the southern tip of South America that we hadn't planned to know this well. A weather delay, two days of shooting colorful murals and seabirds along the Strait of Magellan, and a group photo walk that turned a room full of strangers into an expedition. Then the green light came, and everything changed.
The Cold Expedition Kit: Shooting in a Hostile Environment
The kit that fails you in Antarctica will fail you in Svalbard. This is a first-person account of what I brought to the Antarctic Peninsula with Aurora Expeditions — what earned its place, what didn't, and the discipline required to keep everything working in cold, wet, hostile conditions. Canon R5s, RF glass, battery management in the cold, and a cleaning ritual I treated as seriously as any shoot.
What Antarctica Does to a Photographer
Antarctica doesn't distribute its extraordinary moments evenly. It just keeps interrupting, and you keep having to decide whether to put your fork down. This is a photographer's account of ten days on the Antarctic Peninsula: the wildlife on its own terms, a floating masterclass from eight photographers with eight distinct ways of seeing, and what it actually costs to document a place you know is changing. I came back with a clearer sense of my own eye than I had going in, and that's the most valuable thing a trip can give you.