More Antarctica Pics

[barondave]

Added another five albums to Porpoising to Antarctica. I've finished the first pass, and hope to have all 2389 pictures up on the web soon.

But don't worry... when finished, the first album will be the Best of Porpoising, roughly corresponding to the 160 or so prints that I brought to the MN-STF Pool Party. Some are cropped and edited!

Comments

[ntrlstgrl.livejournal.com]

Very jealous...of the trip and the pictures...and am itching to go repeat your trip but take my (yes I'm old-fashioned) Pentax K-1000 and black & white film. I would love to see what the icebergs would look like in black & white. I started doing black & white photography a few years back and often find myself preferring it to color. The contrast and texture that shows up in B&W doesn't always have a direct match in color and I find it fascinating. It's also sometimes a gamble; what will I get if I take this picture with B&W film instead of color? I love going out to the wildlife refuge east of town and running off a roll of film and seeing what happens.

It looks as if you had a fabulous trip! I'm guessing this is described somewhere else...point me at the "whys & wherefores" of what took you to Antarctica?

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I haven't done too much with the journal I kept on the trip (see earlier LJ entries for the first couple) and will eventually make a more formal Journal with links to pictures and soundfiles and such.

Briefly: Travel light. I splurged a bit and brought several shirts and more socks than I needed, but the heaviest stuff was the electronics. If you're bringing a standard camera, you mainly need film and x-ray proof protectors. (I thought I'd take a thousand pictures and wound up taking three thousand: You'll need more film than you think. Even if you don't use it, you'll won't regret the weight.)

Over and above the standard things you might bring, I would recommend: An eight-battery recharger. Possibly not as important for you, since you're not bringing a digitial camera, but still. You'll be tired the day will be full. Don't spend it waiting for batteries to charge. I brought three sets of rechargeables, and sometimes was using the third while two sets were charging.

A messenger pouch. This was a last minute addition, and one of the best things I did. (You can see the green bag slung over my shoulder in many pictures.) I got it because it held both the camera case and the binocular case, but I rarely brought the binoculars. It was useful because it held a bunch of stuff (I used it on the airplane trip down to hold passport, book, iPod, etc) and because it was another water resistant layer (in addition to the camera case itself) when we got splashed on the Zodiacs going to land. The guidebook recommended a backpack, but being able to access equipment without taking a pack off my back was incredibly handy.

A current adapter for South America. Again, probably not as important if you're not using a digital camera (or something that needs batteries), but it was not only useful in Santiago, but on the ship. The Endeavour had US current, but also had an outlet in S. American current, so I had two outlets plus all the extension cords we could fit.

A laptop. Small. You'll need it for a journal, if not your iPod. If you're stopping along the way, get a wireless connection to get e-mail from the various Internet places.

Speaking of an iPod... While the iPod itself was nice to have on the plane and at various times, what I really brought it for was to do interviews. Get a microphone. Alas, there aren't (or weren't a few months ago) any good ones, but something is better than nothing and I can clean up a lot of the sound at home.

Depending on where you go, and when, it's actually quite warm. We were never far from the ocean so it was always around freezing (or higher). Windy, but not that cold. My standard Mpls coat is MUCH warmer than the red parka the expedition gave everyone. The Lindblad jacket is warmer and with fewer pockets, but you could take out the fleece lining for a second, lighter, jacket.

Waterproof boots. Good ones are pricey ($70) but worth it.

I made address labels for anyone who wanted a postcard, so I made sure everyone got one and no one had to try to read my writing. (I've only gotten one of the non-US postcards so far.)

That's all I can think of at the moment.