Special Presentation by Bob Johnson ARPS
The Kingdom of The Ice Bear
Tuesday 22nd February.
This evening members of Norwich & District Photographic Society were all entertained by an inspirational story of arctic adventure illustrated by some outstanding photographs. The presentation by Bob Johnson was a description of his four week trip inside the Arctic Circle in the Svalbard area in the former seal hunter ship called Havsel and captained by Bjorn Kvernmo to the Kingdom of the Ice Bear!
Bob began by telling how he started photography, fell in love with Africa (he has been there 14 times now!), talked of his farmers photos in Essex but quickly moved on to this evening's presentation in the far north of Norway. The boat he was on had previously been used for seal hunting, capable of hunting and killing 1,500 seals on a trip, but today Captain Bjorn is now passionate about wildlife.
At the start of the trip there was a lack of bears and they sailed along the edge of the ice where Bob had some amazing views from the crow's nest. Suddenly they spotted a dead whale and 21 bears. The view was amazing, 21 polar bears all together in one spot was a record even for the captain, but the horrible, rancid smell . . . Later a mother bear and two cubs were spotted, and the photographers watched them for a couple of days, just long enough for the bears to get used to the ship and come closer and closer allowing some breath taking photography.
In the second part of the presentation Bob explained that when he took a photo he exposed for the subject not the background and this seemed to work well.
Generally, the ice sheet is retreating and part of the reason for this is the number and size of tour ships. Apparently these ships are the worst polluters on the planet.
They stopped at the most northerly town on earth, Longyearbyen, 78 degrees North, and a town where it is against the law to die!
Bob and his friend were given the job of buying supplies going by boat into the town. This gave them the chance to see some local wildlife, arctic fox, and reindeer.
They saw a group of walruses, a group of males, but were unable to get close because of the smell!
After two weeks, Bob stayed onboard as the Havsel collected a second group of photographers and began another voyage. There was more ice than a couple weeks before and a relaxed bear provided opportunity for more photographs. At 800 kg the polar bear is the largest carnivore on earth in spite of the fact that they have only 10% success when they hunt. But there are about 25 thousand of them and that population is stable at the moment.
Bob rounded off his presentation with his five favourite shots of polar bears and a very last shot of Svalbard through the airport lounge window.
