On the Other Side of the World with Art Wolfe
by Mike Tedesco - Pro Photo Community

One of the most remote, natural, and beautiful places on earth, South Georgia Island is home to a wide array of animal life including penguins (king, macaroni, and gentoo), seals (fur and elephant), and albatross (black-browed, grey-headed, and light-mantled sooty). South Georgia Island is also the largest breeding location for the Antarctic fur seals and king penguins. It is a place that can only be reached by ship, and it exhibits ever-changing weather patterns that have affected some of history's greatest explorers, including the famous Ernest Shackleton. At one moment you're sitting in complete sunshine forgetting that you are in the Antarctic region, and within 20 minutes you might be blown by 40-mph winds and pounded by rain or snow.

South Georgia is Art Wolfe's favorite place to visit and, as such, was the location for the filming of the Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe episode titled "The Southern Ocean: South Georgia Island." I had the incredible opportunity to join Art and his crew for the filming of this episode, and this story describes the behind the scenes of this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

To begin, I must say that Travels to the Edge is an appropriate name for Art's series as our adventure began with two-plus days of flying from the United States to Santiago, Chile, and then off to the Falkland Islands. From there, we embarked from Stanley aboard the Clipper Adventurer cruise ship. After two stops in the Falkland Islands, we were off for another two-and-a-half days at open sea, across the Scotia Sea, to our final destination of South Georgia Island.

The expedition was led by Zegrahm Expeditions based out of Seattle, Washington, and included a who's who of expedition leaders in the industry. We had leaders in the areas of geology, ornithology, history, ecology, and of course photography. We were fully prepared to interact with the wildlife and rugged terrain that awaited us.

Given the remote locations that Art travels to, he ensures that he has backups of his equipment while also keeping an eye on volume and weight given the amount of hiking involved. "On many of these international trips, we are limited by the airlines as to how much we can carry, so we are always trying to find ways to reduce our load," said Wolfe, "but we also don't have a way to get replacement gear easily, so we have to be prepared for the worst." For the South Georgia trip, Art carried the following camera gear:

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II body
• Canon EOS 5D body
• Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L USM lens
• Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens
• Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens
• Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8 Tilt-Shift lens
• Canon 400mm f/4 DO IS USM lens
• Galen Rowell graduated neutral density filters
• Lexar Pro 80x and 133x 4GB CF cards
• Gitzo 1348 Carbon Fiber Tripod with the Arca Swiss Ballhead
• (12) 60 – 120GB USB 2.0 external drives

His assistant also carried two Canon EOS 5D camera bodies with similar lenses to Wolfe's so that there was redundancy across the team's gear. This proved fortunate for me after my tripod with my Canon 70-200 2.8 L IS USM lens fell over during a shoot of black-browed albatross and the lens sheared off right at the mount, rendering it useless. Art was able to lend me a spare 70 – 200mm lens for the remainder of the trip.

The filming of this episode took place during an 8-day circumnavigation of the island that involved multiple landings by zodiac and shoots per day. Wolfe's film crew consisted of his full-time assistant, John Greengo, and two cameramen, Sean White and Karel Bauer. At each landing, the entire crew was the first group off the ship and was very quick to get to their desired shooting location. "We have a lot to cover in each episode and on an expedition cruise like this we have a limited amount of time at each landing to get the shot, so we need to be efficient" said Bauer.

I'll never forget the anticipation of the first zodiac landing in South Georgia. It was after lunch, and the weather was not in our favor. We were dressed in full rain clothing, and we prepared our packs to protect the photography gear from the elements. Riding in on the zodiacs towards Right Whale Bay, we quickly forgot about the rain and took inventory of what we were about to see. You could not only see and hear the thousands of king penguins and hundreds of fur seals, but you could smell them too, and this was an odor that we would become quite familiar with throughout our time on the island.

Our very first interaction with the wildlife on the island was with the aggressive fur seals. They were at the beginning of mating season so they were very protective of their space on the beach fronts. The expedition leaders were able to create and maintain safe paths for the passengers to walk through. This was a frequent experience at each landing, and we had to be very conscious of our surroundings because the fur seal can travel over uneven ground faster than any human being.

It was amazing to watch Art get off the zodiac and immediately know where he wanted to go. His knack for quickly identifying the best shooting locations not only for the subject, but also for the lighting that would soon appear, was unbelievable. There were times when we'd get to a spot and I didn't quite see what the reason was for that location. Art would point out the time of day, where the sun was rising or setting, the behavior of the wildlife, and would describe what would most likely happen in the coming moments—and sure enough he was usually right.

This is something that separates the experienced working professional from the enthusiast. Pros like Art know where they need to be and when. And they are willing to do whatever it takes to get there, whereas the non-pros are often content with setting up their tripods and cameras based only on the subject in front of them.

The photo shoots and filming sessions themselves were multi-faceted because Wolfe covered the environment, ecology, photography, technology, and travel, among other things, so there was a lot to think about when approaching each session. "In the show, I'm trying to provide as much detail as possible about where we are and what we are doing. For many, my images and this show will be as close as they will come to visiting some of these locations, so I strive to give them as much as I can" said Wolfe. Art is also thinking about images for his business. "Not only am I photographing for the series, but I'm also working on images for print, books, and education curriculum."

Some of the most spectacular scenes and photographic opportunities of South Georgia appeared during the 4:00 a.m. landings when the skies were filled with vibrant blues, pinks, and purples. The land was covered in penguins, seals, and sea birds. "Every time I come here, I'm reminded of the beauty that this isolated oasis provides" said Wolfe.

In my opinion, those 3:00 a.m. wakeup calls were never easy, but once we were on land and shooting, it was worth it! One of my favorite experiences in particular was when we landed at Gold Harbor, where the beach was covered with three-week old elephant seal pups that had recently been left by their mothers who went to sea for food. The pups were very docile and curious about the humans, and when we sat still on the beach, these pups would come up to us and actually climb into our laps to see if we might have food. In fact, while Art was lying down to take some pictures of the pups, one of them actually climbed onto his back, giving us an opportunity to capture some great images of Art mingling with nature.

Back on the ship after each shoot, Art used two Dell XPS M1210 laptops, provided by Dell, to organize, review, and edit his images. Both laptops were running Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate with Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Photoshop CS2, and Photo Mechanic by Camera Bits installed.

Downloading the images from the compact flash cards and backing them up to a pair of USB drives was the first order of business. Using Photo Mechanic, Greengo used the ingest feature to offload the files directly to a pair of USB drives to immediately create a backup. During this process, the files were renamed using a custom setup that included a code for the location, date, and a 4-digit number (for example, SGA200612010001.CR2).

Having the most efficient tools available was critical. "We need to be as streamlined as possible" says Greengo. "When we come in from a shoot, we have anywhere from hundreds to thousands of images on a number of cards, and I need to transfer the images to the drives before we head out for the next shoot."

Throughout the eight-day trip around South Georgia, Wolfe amassed approximately 15,000 images that would eventually be catalogued back in the studio. Given the size of those files, the laptop drives would be filled in no time, so all images always went directly to USB drives rather than being stored directly on the laptops.

Once the images were on the USB drives, Art would step in and use Adobe Bridge to do an initial review and mark images for editing in Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop. Although there has been so much to learn with the advent of digital imaging, Wolfe is more engaged in the editing process than ever.

In fact, whenever there was any downtime on the ship, Art was guaranteed to be in his cabin in front of his laptop processing images from that day. "I'm more excited to work on my images than I have been in the 30+ years as a professional photographer" says Wolfe. "Once I'm on my way back to our tent, ship, or wherever we are staying, I get excited about getting back to my laptop so that I can review my results and start editing my favorites."

As Art has noted to me over the years, when dealing with computer software and pro photographers, ease of use is imperative. "I love working on my images, but my business is built from my taking photographs, not sitting in front of my laptop." Given that Wolfe is working on many projects at the same time, any tool that can help him sort and organize his images easily will be put to use. "The technology today is getting easier and easier" says Wolfe. "That's one of the things I like about the latest operating system. I can review my RAW and TIFF files, apply tags for my projects, and rate my images all right within the operating system without having to open a number of applications. And at the same time, I can easily create a slideshow to see the results of that day's shoot…I love it!"

After our final landing, Art was generous enough to create and present a slideshow of images that he had captured during the trip. Naturally, the passengers and crew were in awe of his results.

Following the circumnavigation of South Georgia Island, we began our voyage back through the Scotia Sea towards the Falkland Islands for one final stop at Sea Lion Island. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how sea sick one gets, we hit our first major storm of the 3-week trip. This one was a category 1 hurricane, with 70–80 mph winds and 20-foot swells.

The storm forced the captain and crew to slow the ship, which resulted in four days at open sea as we headed directly to our disembarkation location of Ushuaia, Argentina. While some were not feeling well, and others were a little nervous given the severity of the storm, the photographers were exactly where I expected them to be—up on the captain's bridge with cameras in hand to capture the spectacular waves crashing over the bow of the ship.

This unexpected storm and photographic opportunity was a perfect ending to a trip full of surprises. This was a voyage that provided beautiful landscapes, amazing wildlife, new friendships, and awesome adventures. The voyage is something I will never forget.