Two polar regions in the same year!

After spending some of January 2009 south of the Antarctic Circle (along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula) I now get to spend some of November and December north of the Arctic Circle!

I have the honour of being the Artist in Residence aboard the MS Trollfjord (a Hurtigruten ship) on voyages travelling along the Norwegian coast as far up as Kirkenes (at the Russian border). This includes their Hunting the Light trips. As well as making art, my job will involve conducting photography workshops for passengers.

If you're on a voyage on the Trollfjord between the 24th of November and the 28th of December 2009, please let me know!

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It will be mid-winter and while parts of the voyages will be north of the Arctic Circle and well into 24 hours of darkness, it won't be dark all the time. We should get decently-long twilight each day, as well as good chances of seeing the Northern Lights. I'll be taking my EOS 5DmkII and some fast lenses to make the most of the low-light conditions! Further south along the coast we will definitely see the sun (although the days will be short).

I'm very excited about this trip. Not only will I finally be visiting my seventh continent (Europe), as well as visiting both polar regions in the same calendar year, but I should be able to bring back "a few" nice images of the Aurora Borealis!

Keep your eye on this blog for a series of articles about the trip preparations as well as during my residency, and you can share some of the experience with me! More on this soon.

Unfortunately we've had to reschedule the December Cradle Mountain workshop as a result of this engagement. Thank you to those who had already registered for that workshop (we've already been in touch) you've been very accommodating! We plan to announce a new 2010 date for Cradle Mountain (probably for Spring/Summer 2010) early next year as part of our next season of workshops.

Note that the January wildlife workshops are unaffected by this! In fact we still have just a couple of places free on each of those workshops: if you're interested, now is the time to act.