EXPEDITION ANTARCTICA MY 10-DAY VOYAGE on the sea spirit with the muench workshops crew

It all started with a call

My friend and colleague (and fellow KelbyOne Instructor), Richard Bernabe gave me a call one day to see if I'd be interested in being a part of the instructor team for a Muench Workshops photography expedition to Antarctica. It's a place on my wish list of trips for a few years now (ever since I saw Winston Hendrickson's images, and then Rick Sammon's beautiful photos from his trip there), so I couldn't say, "Yes! Absolutely!' fast enough, and sure enough – it turned out to be everything I hoped it would be – the trip of a lifetime.

Getting There Isn't Half The Fun

From leaving Tampa to reaching Antarctica on our ship: 5 days total.

I know why more people don't go to Antarctica. It's because getting there takes a lot of effort and travel time. For me, from the day I left my house for the airport until the first day I saw an iceberg, or anything you would take your camera out for, was five days. I flew from Tampa to Atlanta and then took a 9:00 PM overnight flight (10+ hours) to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I arrived the next day. I had to take a taxi for one hour and a half to a different airport and spend the night there to catch my 6:00 am flight. The next day, I flew around 4 hours from there to the charming town of Ushuaia, Argentina (at the Southernmost tip of the country), where you catch your ship. I boarded the ship the next day and then spent the next two days sailing through the notorious Drake Passage, which is known as "The world's most terrifying ocean crossing" (link). (NOTE: we got quite lucky as both our passages coming and going were fairly calm. Whew! We were all sweating that one).

Then, after two days and nights of going through The Drake, suddenly the waters are calm, and you start seeing huge icebergs float by, sea birds, and lots and lots of ice everywhere.

The Sea Spirt: Our Home At The Bottom Of The World

Above: the mighty Sea Spirt, a small luxury cruise liner was our home for our 10-day expedition.

This little luxury liner made such a perfect home for our group of 68 (approx) photographers, 12 or so Pro Photographer Instructors, the awesome Muench Workshops team (more like superheroes), and the Expedition crew of the ship, which included scientists and naturalists to help us learn more about the wildlife and the incredible environment of Antarctica (and they were there to make sure we didn't mess it, or the wildlife up, in any way).

Above: You saw lots and lots of penguins every day, all day, and just as cute as they can be, an awfully fun to watch and photograph.

Above: This is shot hand held at 600mm (Tamron 150-600mm lens at f/6.3) shot from down at water level, in the snow, from a Zodiac raft. I can't believe it's even in focus.

Above: We cruised right past this iceberg with it's Penguin passengers. When something like this happens, you get an announcement over the ship's PA: "Grab your cameras – penguins on an iceberg off the port side!"

Shooting down low from the Zodiacs gives you a unique perspective photographically.

Just one part of an enormous iceberg.

These icebergs were HUGE!!!!

Hard to believe but this mountain is over 2,000 feet tall.

Above: An Argentinian outpost – though not manned year round, but I do like that they painted the camp red. It's like that did that for photographers.

Above: We got an announcement on the ship's PA, "Beautiful sunset ahead – grab your cameras," so that exactly what I did.

Antarctica in Black & White

During the trip, I would come across mountains or icebergs that had huge differences in contrast with just one or two areas being lit from breaks in the clouds overhead. When I saw those, I would intentionally underexpose the shots and then convert them to black and white. It kind of wound up being a mini-series for me on the trip, and here are a few of my favorites of those below.

Pinguinos Galore!

If there's one thing Antarctica has in abundance, it's Penguins, and I love it! I'm not a wildlife photographer, but I at least tried to mimic one while I was there. The ubiquitous penguins are just so darn cute, and they literally come floating past your stateroom window on small icebergs, and they aren't the least bit intimated by us standing right near them (well, 15 feet back by rule, but it feels like you're right on 'em). What cracks me about them happens because we must maintain that 15-foot buffer zone between them and us, so if they start walking toward us, we scramble to move away from them. All I can think is these penguins must think they're pretty badass because people four times their size run away any time they come toward us. It's so darn cute, and so are they. Plus, they're not fast, which helps from a photography standpoint.

Here's a bunch of the little bad boys of the snowy beaches (below):

Zodiac Life

The Sea Spirit carries eight Zodiac inflatable boats it can deploy, and you board them from a dock on the back of the ship. There are two crew members helping you get onto the Zodiac, and the Zodiac helmsman (the boat driver) is helping you as well. The process of boarding is actually quite easy and safe. Once in the Zodiac, you sit right on top of the inflatable pontoons along the sides (there are no seats) with your dry bag full of camera gear between your legs. You lean in a bit so you don't fall backward into the frigid water (you are wearing a life vest, but brrrrrrr!). I asked our helmsman if she had ever had anyone fall in. I was relieved to hear she'd never had someone plunk in thus far (and I was determined not to be the first), so I held on tightly to the rope line encircling the boat – something I noticed other photographers sitting on the pontoons were doing as well.

This was from our last Zodiac cruise on the only day it looked like I imagined it would down there – hazy and snowy and overcast, but I didn't imagine there would be so much still water. This is some of our group photographing a Leopard Seal on that chunk of ice on the left.

Shooting from the Zodiacs

If you're heading to shore to do a "Landing" (where you get out of the Zodiac and roam among the Penguins), you're just transiting between the ship and the landing spot, so the Zodiac moves pretty quickly through the icy water. You don't take your camera gear out for these transits – you keep it in your dry bag for safety. Besides, it would be hard to shoot with the rubber boat bobbing up and down while you cut through the waves in route. Once you reach shore, there is no dock – they pull up as close as they can to shore, but you still have to swing your legs over the pontoons and out into the water, and then you stand and walk about 10 or so feet onto land (there's plenty of crew to help everybody get safely out of the Zodiac and onto land). Also, they issue you these great tall waterproof boots the first day on board, and once you swing your legs out and stand up in the water, you realize why these boots are so necessary.

Later (usually in the afternoons around 3:00 pm), we'd do a Zodiac "Cruise" instead, where you're shooting the whole time, and the Zodiac is moving very slowly and will stop if there's something to see, like whales or Leopard Seals, or a really interesting iceberg. You can stand up and shoot if you ask the helmsman first, and they give you the all-clear, but otherwise, you never stand up to shoot without asking first.

Everybody is pretty respectful while you're shooting, and if you realize you're in the way, you kind of layover on your side or get down on your knees so they can get a clear shot. With eight people often on board, shooting between, to the side, or over your shipmates is just what you do unless you're doing more landscape type of shooting and aiming up and the mountains so you have a clear shot. Also, the helmsmen are great at making sure both sides of the Zodiac get to shoot whatever it is you've stopped to shoot – they'll circle the boat around or double-back, so both sides get a clean shot, so you sometimes have to be patient while one side is shooting and they've blocking your view, but you know the helmsman is going to turn the boat to give you a shot, too.

Below are some shots of us out there shooting and a few shots of the Sea Spirit ship itself, including the hallway outside my cabin and the main room where we taught our classes, projected on four huge TV screens at the front of the room.

Above: That's the statement that Richard and I shared, with all our stuff kind of all over. That's a yellow Dry Bag on my bed, which we stored our gear in when making a landing in a Zodiac.

Heading out for a Landing (not the speed).

The low shooting angle from the Zodiacs is awesome. I just wish there was something here that could give a sense of scale, because you just can't imagine how huge this iceberg is. At least 1,000 feet high if not more.

A couple of Pengins "Porpoising" (that's what they call it) across the water.

It was "whale soup" out there most days with your helmsman (usually once of the scientists or naturlists from the ship's crew), would spot whales, and sometimes there were so many you couldn't keep up with them. .

Again, I wish you could see the scale.

The Worst Part: I Caught A Nasty Cold!

Not just me, but my roommate Richard, too – we both caught a nasty bug and missed about two days of our time there. I think I missed four or five of the Zodiac landings and cruises as I was holed up in bed (we both were), with lots of coughing, sniffling, sneezing, and just lying there feeling like crud. The worst part was hearing, "A really cool iceberg with penguins coming up on the starboard bow," and you feel too awful to get up, get your cold weather gear on, and head out on the deck to shoot. I know it sounds, "Aw come on, you could have gotten up for a few minutes," but I had no energy whatsoever with this cold or bug or whatever – neither of us could bring ourselves to do it. I spent an entire day never leaving my bed. After a day or two, I did start feeling better, so I was able to catch one more Zodiac cruise out on the last day, but I missed about two full days of our six days out there, so I have about 1,500 fewer photos than everybody else, which is disappointing, but hey, it happens, and it sure could have been worse.

Scale. None more than in this image. The iceberg in the front has to be between 1,500 and 2,000 feet high by my estimation, but without something for scale, they could be 50 feet high.

The Muench Workshops Experience

This was my first time working with the Muench Workshops crew, and while I've been a guest instructor on many workshops over the years (there were 12 pros on this expedition, so about 1-pro per every six passengers), I was blown away at what an incredible experience the Muench workshop team provides. They have pretty much thought of everything, taken care of everything, have backup plans for everything, and they look after the passengers and instructors like you cannot believe. Each day onboard, there were inspirational talks, lectures, and post-processing classes (including lots of Lightroom and Photoshop training). I did two talks while there, and it was just a fantastic experience from start to finish. Just absolutely a first-class event from start to finish (and Jess and Talor from Team Meunch made absolutely certain everything came off without a hitch. They are wizards at what they do. Here's a link to where else they're going this year and next. I can't recommend them enough.

The icing on the cake for me was getting to room with Richard Bernabe. What a great guy, and just a lights-out incredible photographer and storyteller, and one of the most dedicated and helpful guys you'd ever want to meet. He helped me a lot, just answering questions and giving me insights; plus, he taught a fantastic class on composition, and he just nailed it. He's the consummate pro, and it was really great getting to spend some time with him and getting to know him better.

Also, a big tip of the hat goes to the crew of the Sea Spirit, who routinely goes above and beyond each and every day. It's like they knew everybody's name by the 2nd day of the trip, and they bent over backward to make sure everybody had everything they needed all the time. Very professional, super friendly, and fun. The food on board was super tasty (and my dear friend Rick Sammon gave me the insider tip that if you ask, they'll make you the best cheeseburger on the Seven Seas. I availed myself of that opportunity several times. Thanks, Rick!).

Beautiful colors as we leave for the Drake Passage and our trip back to Ushuaia.

The Mighty Muench Crew: (From L to R); Marc Muench, Greg Vaughn, Sarah Linssen, Virgil Reglioni, Luke Dray, Talor Stone, Me, Cecilia Costa, Richard Bernabe, Joseph Roybal, Wayne Suggs, Jess Griffin, David Thompson, David Rosenthal, Sean Dundas, and Rachel Bigsby.

Above: Heading back in from our afternoon Zodiac cruise before our trip back through the Drake Passage to Ushuaia.

Truly The Trip Of A Lifetime!

If you wind up spending half your trip sick in bed, and you still had an extraordinary time, that's a testament to the incredible wonders and wildlife of Antarctica, the careful planning and programming of the Muench folks, and the top flight crew of the Sea Spirt. All these came together to create a journey like no other, and one the group of pros, all the photographers on board, and surely I will never forget. I'm grateful to the folks at Muench Workshops, Richard Bernabe and Marc Muench, for the opportunity and the Drake Passage for giving us all smooth passage coming and going. I still can't believe I got to do this.

Thank you for letting me share my trip with you. Here's wishing you the chance to see it for yourself, with smooth sailing along the way.

PHOTOS: Taken with a Canon R6 Mk II, a Canon 24-240mm lens, a Tamron 150-600mm lens, and an iPhone 16 Pro.

CREATED BY

Scott Kelby

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