Sitting at the end of the world

Taken during a land excursion in our sailing expedition to remote

Spitzberg islands. This picture sums many of the aspects of this

arctic land so close to the north pole. Absence of human civilisation,

perennial snow and ice caps, blue glacier calving icebergs in

magnificent fjords, and a hostile nature in which man is just a

helpless spectator. Does my picture convey all this? Comments and

suggestions warmly appreciated!

I am not sure about the crop ... More sky above, the character sitting in the bottom right corner, and that would convey the feeling you are talking about to me !

Nice panorama though I agree with the above about the desolation bit. I see you took the old reliable FM2 for this!

Colin, I *always* take the FM2 with me! Has resisted more than me to scratches and hits over a few mountain trips or remote travels! I seldom use it with a 80-200 in front, though. Mainly since it's too heavy to even think about adding to my load.

 

This travel was actually an exception since weight was less an issue, and brought also a F100, with the idea of using the autofocus with a 400mm focal length (through teleconverter) for wildlife encounters.

 

What happened is that a film on which I had some very good shots got a problem: after the 36th frame detached from its holder inside the cannister and went all the way to the right of the camera.

 

I thought of using the backpack as a darkroom and unroll it to put it "somewhere" but I did not have "anywhere" to decently put it, so since I had the F100 that had to serve for the last few days as the backup body for the FM2. The FM2 nicely waited for the film to be pulled out in appropriate conditions.

 

Annoyingly enough, once back home, the lab where I brought the FM2 to retrieve the film and save it (if I wanted to lose it I would have just tried it on the field) made a supreme mess of it and I lost quite a few unique shots: summit views under red midnight sun over icecapts from places where last time someone must have walked must have been in the whaling seasons of late 1700...

OK, since you are concerned about weight on your backpacking trips, perhaps now is the time to consider a digital camera. The new Nikon CoolPix 8800 has a 10X telephoto and 8 MP. Might be worth a try. I struggle with the weight issue all the time when backpacking but it seems the digital prosumer is the way to go. As much as I would prefer to take the D70 with the 70-200 telephoto, my CP 5700 is less than half the weight. As you know, that makes a huge difference. BTW, nice shot although I would move the subject to the left about 2 meters.