Day 10: Kongsfjorden and Ossian-Sarsfjellet

Skies, ice, and a special appearance

Our seasick journey over the night of Day 9 into Day 10 landed us in a place called Kongsfjorden, which translates in English to the King’s fjord. We headed out for a zodiac tour of the glacier. I was lucky enough to be on a zodiac again with Tom and a few other really fun members of the group. As we headed towards the fjord, we could tell the photography would be absolutely epic.

First, I noticed a beautifully angled iceberg in the water that was catching direct sunlight. It made for an immensely dramatic photograph with the glacier and mountain in the clouds in the background. I was also confident enough at this point to direct our zodiac driver to exactly the right angle to have the iceberg composed as I wanted it. We were also lucky that our driver Sandra was a photographer herself, so she knew where to locate the zodiac for the optimal photos. She had even brought her gear with her for this particular cruise!

We drove closer to the glacier and at some point were sailing through thousands of tiny blocks of ice. As it was just above freezing, the ice was slowly melting and releasing tiny amounts of air trapped in the ice. This resulted in a beautiful hum from the water. The best I can describe it is the sound an ice cube makes when you poor water on it on a hot day, but continuous and much louder.

Sitting on the right side of the boat, Tom and I were very excited to try photographing these pieces of ice. We hung over the side of the zodiac trying to compose the ice with dramatic dark blue clouds and a perfectly pointed mountain at the tip of the fjord (the fjord was a large “C” shape, so we faced away from the glacier). Tom had on his 24-70 f4 and I had on my 24-105. At first, we thought 24mm was the ideal composition but I insisted to Tom that Ultrawide would be cool, so I switched to my 14-35 and Tom his borrowed 14-24.

Most my shots were then somewhere between 14-16mm. I remember saying to Tom “DUDE, ultra-wide looks DOPE!” and Tom tried a few at Ultrawide himself. But little did I know that many of my Ultrawide shots had the edge of the zodiac creeping in to the bottom of the frame, made the mountain look tiny, and introduced way too much blue sky overhead. Tom was smart and kept shooting at 24mm, so he got a lot more usable shots than me.

I still came away with a shot that I like, and it’s one of my favorites from the trip.

We headed further into the fjord. Navigating the zodiac became increasingly challenging as it was effectively floating and scraping on ice. The prop would make contact with the ice as well, which resulted in an awful grinding noise. As the wind continued to change the cloud cover overhead, a lenticular cloud formed right before our eyes.

We then stumbled upon two of the most beautiful icebergs we had ever seen. They were a dramatic translucent blue but with dark grey sediments lines. It’s difficult to tell in photographs the dramatic three-dimensional nature of these icebergs and the texture of its layers - Same with the scale: The one below is the size of a large single story house. As we finished photographing this iceberg, approximately 200 meters away, a gigantic iceberg rolled to its side with a huge crash and resulting wave. Sometimes, one large iceberg rolling can cause a cascade of turning, so our drivers had to turn us around and get away quickly.

The final shot that I got on this outing is also one of my favorites from the trip. It’s probably the most minimalist shot, and only a few of us on the trip got it. Taken fully extended at 400mm, this is a shot of a small mountain in the background of the glacier. I love that it gives no sense of scale - The mountain could be 10,000 feet or 100, and it’s impossible to tell.

A special appearance

After returning from this zodiac cruise, I think many of us could have been done for the trip and been very happy. But the expedition team always filled the day with ideas, so we had one more place to go before calling the trip complete. We would do a landing at a place called Ossian-Sarsfjellet. On first look, this was a pretty underwhelming location with an uninteresting beach and mostly dirt surrounding us. Even the cliffs were dirt rather than rock. The cliffs were full of birds but I could not care less about that. A few of us commented that pretty much the only wildlife we hadn’t yet photographed was the Arctic Fox. What if the Arctic Fox made an appearance on the last outing of our trip? How crazy would that be? We knew it would be unlikely since foxes tend to hide when 40+ people land near their homes.

But it would be crazy indeed. As we explored the beach and surrounding land, we saw an Arctic Fox! He was extremely difficult to see against the cliffs, but he was there! The fox was half grey and half white, as at this point in the season the foxes transition from white fur to black fur. The fox made his way from our side of the cliff towards the birds; it was obvious he was on the hunt! A group of about a dozen of us assembled, trying our best to track and photograph the fox. This proved extremely difficult as the fox blended in to the walls and traversed the cliffs in all directions - Up, down, left, right, diagonal, and through tunnels and holes. I was fully extended at 560mm handheld. One moment I would be tracking the fox and put my camera down to take a rest. I would put the camera back up to my eye and had already lost him.

Eventually I was able to grab a half-decent photo of the fox. It’s cropped and heavily edited - but take a look and see if you can spot him!

And that was that for our photography expedition to Svalbard. We truly saw it all - Every possible kind of wildlife, every possible type of condition, and every kind of terrain.