Fog, ice, and mountains, Antarctica

Claudia and I are having a wonderful time in Antarctica. It’s just an amazing, other-worldly place. And we’ve had great conditions, with unusually calm winds, and some beautiful light and weather.

I’m co-leading this trip for Visionary Wild with Chris Linder, who’s a super-nice guy, and a wonderful photographer and teacher. Our crew aboard the Hans Hansson has been great, getting us into lots of beautiful spots that bigger ships can’t get into, and happily making diversions to circle an interesting iceberg, or check out an ice arch, or get us into the right spots to take advantage of the light. And we have a wonderful group of participants, which always makes it more fun. It’s a small group – only nine participants – and we’re all having a great time together.

I’ve been making lots of lots of photos, so it’ll take me awhile to sort through and process them. But here’s one from yesterday evening. It had been very foggy all day, which worked really well for photographing icebergs looming out of the mist. Then at the end of the day the fog parted enough to reveal this spectacular array of glaciated mountains surrounding us. Those little dots on the foreground iceberg are gentoo penguins.

— Michael Frye

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He lives near Yosemite National Park in California, but travels extensively to photograph natural landscapes in the American West and throughout the world.

Michael uses light, weather, and design to make photographs that capture the mood of the landscape, and convey the beauty, power, and mystery of nature. His work has received numerous awards, including the North American Nature Photography Association’s 2023 award for Fine Art in Nature Photography. Michael’s photographs have appeared in publications around the world, and he’s the author and/or principal photographer of several books, including Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, and The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite.

Michael loves to share his knowledge of photography through articles, books, workshops, online courses, and his blog. He’s taught over 200 workshops focused on landscape photography, night photography, digital image processing, and printing.