K E E N P R E S S

Well, we are finally back in Copenhagen after being away for nearly three months. Missed the entire COP-15 Climate Conference, instead, we were sailing in the Southern Ocean, filming whales, black penguins, and albatross. Three trips in total onboard the National Geographic Explorer. The guests were great, and nearly everyone left the expedition feeling really good about all they had learned, both from the Lindblad naturalists and the Lindblad/Geographic photo team. Here is a link to all of the Daily Expedition Reports to see where and what we were up to. Click here. We have been updating our website with some of the imagery, take a look if you have time. Now we are processing all of our stills and videos, sending them off to the agencies and preparing our summer up North in the Arctic.

Here is a link to our next big trip, Beyond the North Cape, Norway’s Fjord’s and Arctic Svalbard. We will be representing the National Geographic onboard, helping everyone master their skills in photography, and now something new, digital video. With all the new cameras coming out with HD video capabilities, its time to get out the notebooks and start learning, yet another. set of skills. What new and special techniques do you need to think about what you start shooting motion, and recording sound. I am working right now on the curriculum, and will post updates as they get polished. As you know, we have been actively engaged in the recent migration from stills to video. There are shooting and editing techniques to consider, and what better way than on a Lindblad Expedition. One last note before I sign off. We made a new ‘best friend’ on the trip. His name is Andrew Evans, and you have probably heard of him from his Bus2Antarctica project with Geographic Traveler magazine. Read his blog and follow his tweets. It’s changing the way we report and send material back to our loyal readers. He also happens to be one of the nicest persons we have met in a long time. It was a pleasure to travel and work with him. Okay, need to get back to editing and distributing the work. The agencies are anxiously waiting for the material. Stay tuned, I will be back soon.

More bad news about the Climate Change, lead news story on  BBC.

Prof Field said rising temperatures could thaw Arctic permafrost

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures “will be beyond anything” predicted.

Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC report had underestimated the rate of change.

He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast.

Speaking at the American Science conference in Chicago, Prof Field said fresh data showed greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2007 increased far more rapidly than expected.

“We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously in climate policy,” he said.

Prof Field said the 2007 report, which predicted temperature rises between 1.1C and 6.4C over the next century, seriously underestimated the scale of the problem.

He said the increases in carbon dioxide have been caused, principally, by the burning of coal for electric power in India and China.

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Global warming ‘underestimated’.

We have been home printing this weekend for a small exhibit opening at Montana Mobile on Tuesday. We needed to find a photo that could easily fit into a preexisting frame size, tall and narrow. We found the right shot. It was a tight vertical portrait of a young polar bear taken in Svalbard, Norway, a few years ago. For us, however, it never really stood out the way it was originally intended. Taken as a vertical with the Nikkor 200-400mm f.4 lens. It was a good shot, but not great. Just for fun we tried rotating it counterclockwise, and  the image became much stronger. It’s very rare that you can make a change like this and not have it look so obvious. In this case, because of the narrow depth of field, you have a hard time seeing that it was not taken originally as a horizontal. It looks much better big. We liked it so much we posted it to the intro series on our website.

Tell us what you think?

Photo after being turned counterclockwise © 2007 KEENPRESS

We have just added a new photo gallery “Endangered Landscapes” to our website, all taken last December in the Antarctic Peninsula.

Researchers report in the journal Nature that temperatures across Antarctica rose an average of 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The study looked at 50 years of temperature data.

Endangered Landscape 1 © 2009 KEENPRESS

A story published in Nature Magazine suggests that the continent of Antarctica is warming up in step with the rest of the world. Scientists say data from satellites and weather stations indicate a warming of about 0.6C over the last 50 years. Our recent photo gallery from Antarctica.

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | New evidence on Antarctic warming.

The continent of Antarctica is warming up in step with the rest of the world, according to a new analysis. © 2009 KEENPRESS

Photograph called “Penguin Walking in Snowstorm” was just added to our website collection for limited edition prints. You can see it larger in Gallery 3 on our website. © 2009 KEENPRESS

The photo was taken through the window at Port Lockroy on Goudier Island (64º49’S, 63º29’W) in the Antarctic Peninsula.

KEENPRESS will be aboard the National Geographic Endeavour for the next four weeks sailing in Antarctica. We will be teaching photography, giving lectures, and continuing our work about the Melting Poles. Last August our photography from Svalbard and Barentsburg was exhibited at Gallerie Kontrast in Stockholm. We will do our best to upload new work to the site.