Late light catches the glacier front in South Georgia, with a penguin colony strung along the shore below. Photo: Sean De Freitas
Antarctica sets its own terms for a photographer. The light shifts by the minute. Snow and ice push the exposure towards white. The wildlife keeps its own hours, and the moment you came for is there and then gone.
Sean De Freitas made the voyage aboard Silversea's Silver Wind, with an expedition team guiding every landing. He came home with tens of thousands of frames, and with three moments he says will stay with him forever: a penguin caught mid-air at 1/3200th of a second, a lone penguin on a huge iceberg, and a humpback whale that swam beneath his Zodiac and rose beside it to look at everyone on board.
The Tasmanian photographer has carried his cameras through Peru, Chile, Ecuador and the Galápagos, the Kimberley, Europe, the UK and the safari country of Africa. This, in his own words, is how he photographed the far south.
Why I photograph: a legacy in pictures
When I retired six years ago, I reignited my passion for photography. I upgraded to the latest mirrorless camera technology and set about learning all I could about digital photography. The problem with that plan soon became obvious: I started running out of amazing scenery and locations to shoot.
So I decided to put my gear and my passion to better use: to capture the world around me and, in doing so, leave a pictorial legacy for my children. Now, after each major overseas trip, I collate and edit my photos into a large 11 x 14 inch photobook of the journey.
That is how I came to book a 21-day expedition cruise on Silversea's Silver Wind, from the tip of South America to the Falkland Islands, then South Georgia and finally the Antarctic Peninsula. This is my story of that trip.
Sean De Freitas ashore, with both cameras at the ready / Courtesy of Sean De Freitas
A moment in time
"Each photo is a key to an actual event I experienced."
Camera gear for Antarctica: what I packed
Any mobile phone or camera can take photos. But my real interest was the wildlife, especially on South Georgia.
To do it justice, I needed lenses with enough reach to photograph wildlife from a distance, and a camera capable of capturing fast action as it happened. Equally, I needed gear that could show the vast expanses of the seventh continent and tell its story authentically.
Silversea thoughtfully supplied a dry-bag backpack, and my gear went into it for every Zodiac cruise. It was excellent protection against the splash from the waves.
In Sean's bag
- Camera: Sony A1 mirrorless, 50-megapixel RAW at up to 30 frames per second. "A seriously capable sports camera."
- Backup body: an almost identical second A1, after a camera failed on a previous trip
- Lenses: 24–70mm f/2.8 for scenery and landscapes; 70–200mm f/2.8 for mid-distance; 200–600mm f/5.6–6.3, "my big gun". "More often than not, I found myself needing the full 600mm for reach."
- Batteries: four, two per camera. With Zodiac excursions of 45 minutes to an hour, one per camera was plenty before recharging on board
- Memory cards: high-capacity, with spares. "Often, I needed them."
- Protection: a dry-bag backpack for every Zodiac cruise See also our Antarctica packing list.
Know your camera: focus, exposure and shutter speed
Amazing gear on its own is simply not enough. I've found it essential to really learn my camera's capabilities, modes and features, so I always give myself the best chance of a great photo.
Too often on earlier trips, I had missed focus: the camera had focused behind the subject, leaving the background sharp and the subject soft. A rookie error. Exposure is the same. Get it wrong, and it can ruin your results.
My current camera, which I didn't have in Antarctica, even has pre-capture, which looks "back in time" and records the action before you press the shutter. It's very clever, but only if you know how to use it.
Sean's three settings Focus.
The Sony A1 and many similar cameras offer focus modes from wide, which assess the whole scene, down to a tiny focus area you can place precisely on your subject. Lock on, and focus tracking follows the subject as it moves. Exposure. Sony's zebras show stripes on screen wherever the image is overexposed. Reduce the exposure until they disappear, and you're left with a well-exposed image. Shutter speed. Critical for birds in flight or penguins porpoising out of the water. The catch: at a given aperture, a faster shutter speed pushes ISO higher, and high ISO can make a photo muddy and grainy. Use the fastest shutter speed you need to freeze the action, and no faster.
chinstrap penguin porpoising, caught mid-leap / Sean De Freitas
Shooting on an expedition: spray and pray
Frankly, on an expedition you just don't have time to sit down, quietly analyse a scene, think about it and then take your photo. Things happen fast, and your window for great photos is usually short.
"Spray and pray" is probably a fair description of how I take many of my shots. When I see a scene, especially wildlife, I'll often shoot a burst rather than a single frame, to make sure I come away with something worthwhile.
King penguins on a beach in South Georgia / Sean De Freitas
Rocks in the foreground lead the eye to a towering iceberg, Antarctica / Sean De Freitas
Composition is something I always try to think about too, whether that means using the rule of thirds and keeping my point of interest away from the dead centre of the frame, or looking for some foreground interest in a landscape. Again, education and experience are what teach you these techniques.
From good to gallery
"The difference between an average shot and one worthy of hanging on your wall is often down to how well the shot is composed."
And while photography is very important to me, so is experiencing the beauty of the place and the encounters with the wildlife. Balancing the two can be tricky. It's easy to get caught up in the moment and forget to stop and smell the roses.
Back home: culling the also-rans
For me, coming home is another exciting time, as I begin the hard work of reviewing my shots and culling the "also-rans". It's a horse-racing term: only the winner is remembered, never the ones who also ran. It's the same with photos.
I cull tens of thousands of images down to a few hundred of my very best for the photobook. And every time, I'm surprised by how much I missed, or didn't even see, because it happened so quickly.
Frozen in time: the moments that stay
It's hard for me to say which of my images are the best, or even my favourites. Each photo is a key to an actual event I experienced. In a way, each one is something I made: a moment in time, captured by me, on my camera.
But seeing a penguin porpoising out of the water at high speed and capturing it at 1/3200th of a second with the water running off it, frozen in time, was certainly a highlight of this trip. So was the lone penguin standing on a huge iceberg.
And then there was the time a 20-tonne humpback whale watched us, slowly swam beneath our Zodiac, only inches below us, then popped its head up besides the boat to look curiously at all of us. These are moments that will stay with me forever, and they made Antarctica one of the most memorable and enjoyable trips we have ever taken.
King penguins on the shoreline of South Georgia, seen from a Zodiac / Sean De Freitas
Travelling in comfort, with an expedition team guiding us safely and informatively around every place we visited, was a wonderful experience. But for me, the real highlight of the journey wasn't our time on board.
It was what we saw and experienced looking out onto ancient landscapes, isolated from the rest of the world: massive icebergs, expansive penguin colonies, wildlife and nature in the raw, untouched by human civilisation.
That is what truly enthralled me about this journey.
Sean De Freitas is a photographer based in Tasmania. See more of his work on Flickr.
Follow Sean's route
Sean’s voyage took him from the tip of South America to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula aboard Silversea’s Silver Wind. Silversea’s Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia expedition follows the same arc, with South Georgia’s king penguin colonies among its landings. To talk through dates, ships and what to expect on the ice, plan your expedition with our team or read our Antarctica guides.
