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season), I finally got down there to dive through
the National Science Foundation. After that, I
had all the imagery I needed to play my role in
what followed.
SF:
I look at your photography and admire not
only your vision but also the environmental
adversity you must have had to overcome to
work there. Is it as hard as it looks?
JW:
Again, thank you. But the photography is
surprisingly easy, except for the effect the cold water
had on battery life — I needed lithium batteries for
my strobes. Also, remember I was working with
2006 technology. The high ISO capabilities of today’s
cameras would have been welcome, but the best at
the time was my Canon 1Ds Mark II (in a Seacam
housing with Inon Z-240 strobes). It was physically
cold, but it was so stunningly beautiful I often didn’t
notice the cold until my hands started aching and
straining against the stiff drysuit gloves. Doug Allan
of the BBC gave me a pair of his three-finger wet
mittens, which gave my hands more freedom, and
that was transformational for my work.
PACK ICE
The Inuit peoples of northern Alaska have 97 words to describe sea ice. We were
cutting through a painting. Sea ice forms every year as temperatures drop to
–40°F, freezing into an unbroken sheet of ice up to 10 feet thick, effectively
doubling the size of the continent. In between the freeze and the melt, this desert
of drifting ice forms the basis for one of the largest, richest and most dynamic
ecosystems on Earth.
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SOUTHERN OCEAN WAVE
In a pocket between towering 30-foot swells, the icebreaker rolled 35 degrees
left then right, sending an angry curtain of salt-white spray 50 feet into the air.
I lasted only 10 minutes photographing on a low deck, strapped to the handrail
with a climbing harness. It was terrifying, yet the raw power of the waves and
spray sent my heart racing as I rode the great green and yellow chariot south
from New Zealand toward the southernmost body of water in the world.