Words & Images by Chris Bray.
In fact, the tinny, irritating tunes were actually emanating from inside two of the hats, which were not only motorised and flashing, but singing slightly out of sync. But you know what? It didn’t even matter, because Santa had just delivered me something I’ve been wanting ever since I was a kid: A Leopard Seal!
Pointy red hats silenced, we cruised past the floating ice platter in the zodiac, breathlessly training our long lenses on the motionless, speckled blob. As usual, a fraction of a second after most people had lowered their cameras, the leopard seal rolled over, lifted its enormous head and yawned, gaping a mouth so filled with teeth that it needed no translation: “Bugger off Santas!”
Our festive zodiac stayed a respectful distance away, and so to get these shots on my LUMIX GH6, I was zoomed almost all the way in on my Panasonic Leica 100-400mm (giving 800mm equivalent super telephoto on this micro four thirds body!) and had my shutter speed set to 1/2000th second which did the trick, only requiring 800 ISO, which thanks to the GH6’s new Dual Output Gain that kicks in at ISO 800+ gave me a wonderfully noise-free shot.
This trip really was the ultimate white Christmas. Who wouldn’t swap beaches strewn with plump sunbathers for snow clad shorelines strewn with resting Weddell seals (which, despite being even more rotund, are completely adorable – we called the first one Waffles.). Swap crowds of noisy shoppers for crowds of noisy penguins (mind you, penguins do smell worse). Being fairly early in the season meant that the landings were blanketed in fresh white snow (don’t forget to lift your exposure compensation to +1 or more to ensure all that snow turns out nice and bright, rather than that dull blueish grey) and also meant that most of the penguins were either still building their nests (made with pebbles largely stolen from their neighbours nests), or sitting on eggs. At one of the Adélie penguin breeding colonies however, I spotted (ok, actually it was a guest who pointed it out to me – some IAATO accredited expedition guide I am!) that on this one particular rocky outcrop, a couple of them had tiny chicks!
It took forever, and many times I almost gave up as I wanted to explore the rest of the colony too (like most of my guests had moved on to see) but finally, not only did the chick peep out, but the couple of die-hard guests and I still there were rewarded with a super clear view of the parent feeding it some regurgitated krill! With plenty of time to setup for this shot, I’d decided to be on Aperture mode, selecting a slightly higher f/8 to give me a bit more depth of field than normal, so that despite focusing on the chick, the adult would also be nice and sharp. Again, the magic low-noise ISO 800 was enough to give me 1/1600th sec, freezing the action nicely.
Adelie’s are experts at tobogganing along the snow on their bellies, and so after finally getting that chick shot, I had fun capturing a few sliding around.
Great patience and skill may eventually result in a couple of photos of the back end of a penguin disappearing into the water, but I have to admit, to nail a shot like this of the bird launching into flight (in focus too no less!) requires an enormous amount of luck. The GH6’s 7 photos/sec with continuous AFC does tend to generate luck though, especially compared to the film camera one of the ship’s crew was using! (Can you imagine!?)
It wasn’t just wildlife filling my memory cards either – the sheer size, variety and colour of icebergs around us provided endless compositions. One evening we stayed up until 1 AM photographing these frozen sculptures bathed in the glow of the midnight sun.
If all this sounds like fun, I’ve organised another of these two week photo tours down in Antarctica for late February 2025, on the same exclusive little 11-guest ship. It’s fly-in, fly-out again too, so you don’t have to waste days getting seasick crossing the dreaded Drakes Passage to and from South America! And, as the tour runs from 10 to 25 February 2025 this time, not only will there be way more penguin chicks and whales, but we’ll avoid Christmas entirely! No Santa hats, at all.
Check out Chris’ website and join the next adventure – https://chrisbrayphotography.com/tours/
