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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Behind the Frame: On a Mission
On Petermann Island, Antarctica, I spent ten minutes waiting in front of a formation I knew could be a composition, without a subject to put in it. This is the story of the photograph that came out of that wait, and the edit decisions that finished what the shutter started.
In Search of a Lion: Wildlife Photography in Kruger National Park
Three and a half days in Kruger National Park, six safari drives, and one animal I hadn't seen. This is the story of what the bush teaches you when you stop looking for what you want and start reading what's actually there. And what happens on the last morning when you almost give up.
The Zodiac Dance: Shooting from a Moving Platform
The zodiac gets you closer than any ship deck ever could — to the ice, to the wildlife, to the water itself. It also makes nearly everything harder. This is how I thought through shooting from a moving platform across six days of zodiac sessions on the Antarctic Peninsula with Aurora Expeditions.
Finding the Line: Geometry and the Trained Eye
Geometry is always present. In a mosque in Abu Dhabi it announces itself; in a field of icebergs in East Greenland it waits to be found. This post traces that spectrum: six environments, decreasing levels of cooperation from the world, and what the eye learns when it has to do more of the work itself.
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.