Tarnished Earth Exhibition moves to Cardiff

The Tarnished Earth exhibition with my photos from the Canadian tarsands will be on public view in Cardiff from July 1st. More details here. The exhibition coincides with the Cardiff Festival and is promoted here, here and here.

Tarnished Earth Exhibition moves to Plymouth

The Tarnished Earth exhibition with my photos from the Canadian tarsands will be on public view in Plymouth from June 8th. More details here. An accompanying article was published in 'This is Devon' today.

Polar Bear - Take II

It is extremely rare to be granted the opportunity for a reshoot - say you messed up a portrait shoot of a CEO, politician or artist: you grovel, apologise, plead or beg but hopefully manage to get another 5 minutes with the big man. When it comes to shooting wildlife, there is no talking, and usually no second chances.


Cue young polar bear who strolled up to our ship yesterday evening, a day after we first encountered him a few miles back in the ice. He sniffed and hung around for a bit, hoping to scavenge something edible - whether that would be some scraps or a full-sized human, we'll probably never know. All the while the bear was calm, quiet, even slow in his movements but with a clearly discernible purpose to feed himself. After about half an hour the whole thing started to feel more like a portrait session: the bear was pacing up and down in front of our ship before finally getting bored and strolling into the distance on the ice. By that point, I had taken literally hundreds of frames, and here's a small selection of my favourites.

The Polar Bear and the Navy

Last night we had an encounter with a young Polar Bear in the sea ice off the Canadian coast. It was feasting on a seal carcass as we sailed past, closely followed by a Danish Navy patrol ship that has been on our tail since 18 Greenpeace activists boaded the Cairn Energy drill rig Leiv Eiriksson a few days ago.

As we moved forwards, the polar bear and the navy ship's paths aligned, making for some pretty amazing pictures. Just as the navy ship appeared to be on a collision course with the animal, Pete Bouquet, our captain on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise called the Danish ship to 'mind the polar bear'. They responded by thanking him and altering course, thus avoiding a disturbing encounter with the bear.

I was pretty excited by this: these images bring together two opposing symbols: the polar bear for climate change, and the navy ship representing the military-industrial complex that is encroaching on the Arctic. I do hope these will become iconic, as I feel that these images have a symbolic, timeless value in illustrating the conflict between modern civilisation and nature.

Anyway, rant over, enjoy the images below - a full set is viewable here.

Rocking and rolling on the Atlantic

Comrades, it's been a few weeks since we left port in Amsterdam, and life on board has settled into a relatively quiet but rocky transit to the Arctic waters off Greenland. The North Atlantic in springtime tends to be a rough ocean, with cold winds and high seas making life difficult for mariners. Our ship, the Arctic Sunrise is an ice-class vessel with a round hull and no keels - which means that it rolls and pitches like a piece of cork on the water - and has been aptly nicknamed 'the washing machine' for obvious reasons. 


Despite some rocky days at sea, life has settled into a routine. There is lots to be done, prepared and finished, and our crew has worked overtime to get the Arctic Sunrise ready for action. Greenpeace is here to protest Cairn Energy's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic waters of Baffin Bay - drilling in such sea depths this far north has never been tried before and poses obvious risks to the environment. To date, Cairn has not released details of their spill prevention and clean-up plans in case disaster strikes. Following last year's BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, those concerns feel more than justified.


At least we have now found the Leiv Eiriksson, the rig chartered by Cairn Energy that will do most of the drilling in the iceberg-strewn seas between Canada and Greenland. It is the size of a small cathedral, but in this large ocean little more than a needle in a haystack. The old, proverbial David against Goliath scenario appears to be in the making, so stay tuned for future updates.