Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Kevin Raber on July 21, 2017, 03:49:22 pm
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Ghosts Of The Artic (https://luminous-landscape.com/ghosts-of-the-arctic/) is a short video about Joshua Holko, friend, and contributor to this site. This is a film that explores Josh’s project of photographing the Polar Bear in the dead of winter. It took days for Josh to come across the bears. The journey to do so is beautiful. Enjoy this exquisitely photographed six-minute video and cool off during the hot summer days.
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Thank you. That is so beautiful - the cinematography is ...I have no words. Spectacularly beautiful - more than anything I have seen. It brought tears - exquisitely perfect.
(I love the cold too)
Sharon
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Yes, the video is excellent, behind which the vision, planning and effort involved to do it must be very substantial.
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Kevin, how do you keep your camera from freezing. We've had a camera quit working at a little above freezing here. Was Josh's bare just for the movie to show Canon branding or is this a special camera?
edit: our camera quit at a little above 0.
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Kevin, how do you keep your camera from freezing. We've had a camera quit working at a little above freezing here. Was Josh's bare just for the movie to show Canon branding or is this a special camera?
Sharon, we had a lot of camera issues during the filming. And not just battery problems. We were using Canon EOS1DX MKII, Canon Cinema 300, Red Epic 8k Weapon, DJI and Sony 4K systems. The only camera that did not have any problems was the 1DX MKII and the Cinema 300. Everything else gave us problems. We had drones that wouldn’t power up and fly, cameras that wouldn’t turn on, steady-cams that would not remain steady, HDMI cables that became brittle and snapped in the cold, frozen audio equipment, broken LCD mounts, broken down snow mobiles and more. We had a lot of ghosting issues with LCD screens on all cameras. Even the 1DX MKII started ghosting at -30C. But it never missed a beat in terms of operability. The Sony was a major headache.
Personally I shoot in these sort of conditions a lot with the 1DXMKII and I don't use anything special to protect my cameras. Although to get the drone to work for this film we had to tape heat warmers to it and wrap it in duvet inside a dry bag. When we opened it we would get 5 minutes or so before it would die for the day.
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Josh, I participated in a Yellowstone Winter workshop some years ago; it was bitterly cold (though not 30 below). I was using a Canon 1DsMkIII and it stayed the course, while the less weather-protected Canons and all the Nikons people were using in that group froze-up at some point or another. The same Canon also survived intact from being dropped on a piece of very cold hard ice on "the beach" in Iceland several years ago. For a moment I thought my goose was cooked, but no, it just kept going. In Svalbard several years ago my Sony a6000 seized-up just from a lot of dampness in the air, it wasn't even particularly cold out, while the Canon just carried on working fine. Those cameras may be expensive but there's a reason - they perform almost no matter what.
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Thanks, Josh. I miswrote in my post. We had a camera quit at a little above 0. :-)
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Absolutely beautiful and masterfully choreographed!
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Absolutely beautiful and masterfully choreographed!
Lovely photography and a zillion miles outwith my comfort zone!
Two thoughts:
does music (as distinct from voice) actually add anything in this context, where there is no need for an emotional build-up as in "Hollywood" movie story-telling if only because the visuals are so beautiful as to need no bolstering, shoring up (I've run it twice, the first time sans sound);
what happens in the case of a polar bear deciding to attack: are you always with a marksman or do you do the same as those climbers elsewhere in LuLa seem to do, and just ignore risk? And if there is no armed safety net, what about familial responsibility which might appear more important than the personal - is it ignored?
If this feels too personal, I'm sorry, just ignore it; I can't.
Rob C
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what happens in the case of a polar bear deciding to attack: are you always with a marksman or do you do the same as those climbers elsewhere in LuLa seem to do, and just ignore risk? And if there is no armed safety net, what about familial responsibility which might appear more important than the personal - is it ignored?
If this feels too personal, I'm sorry, just ignore it; I can't.
Rob C
The same could be said of war photographers. But I'm glad Josh braved the wild - these bears won't be with us much longer. It seems important to record them.
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The same could be said of war photographers. But I'm glad Josh braved the wild - these bears won't be with us much longer. It seems important to record them.
Indeed, and many such war guys go down. Others go peculiar - well, more than they were to go warring voluntarily in the first intance - and in the end, their efforts serve for nothing because the entire world has seen all the carnage it needs. We have become numb to it. That possibly explains the international interest in the Trump saga, now totally a branch of showbiz, with cliffhanger endings each couple of days, whilst metaphorical Romes burn unseen, unwatched, all around us.
I agree, insofar as the film is beautiful. For the bears, perhaps nature will provide a safe passage for them to drift slowly away from the polar region and towards their brown cousins futher south... If we do get a total ban on the use of carbon fuels, then perhaps the economic value of drilling in extreme areas up north will fade as oil becomes less of a necessity. I hope. But I wouldn't hold my breath.
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I loved the videography but the choice and volume of the music subtracted from the overall experience.
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I loved the videography but the choice and volume of the music subtracted from the overall experience.
Ya know.. you can always turn down your volume... #somepeopleneverhappy
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Ya know.. you can always turn down your volume... #somepeopleneverhappy
Why so touchy about an observation? In another article, you want us to consider all the subtleties of tones etc in making a print. If all you wanted was blanket praise you should have said so to begin with.
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I really liked the music, but ANYWAY.
What a stunning location and achievement. Creating something as beautiful as that so remotely and with such harsh conditions, really quite something. Wonderful to see sights almost no one else on this site will see...
Would love to know your route to Svalbard. How did you fly there? How big was the team?
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I loved the videography but the choice and volume of the music subtracted from the overall experience.
I agree Rajan, beautiful scenery, beautifully shot in a beautiful location of stunning creatures and all shown to us for free by an amazing photographer, so complaining seems churlish, but I do agree the sound in places overtakes the level of the narration, which I am sure could be tweaked Joshua, if you so wanted.
Other than that nit pick, stunning work, bravo!
Dave
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I agree Rajan, beautiful scenery, beautifully shot in a beautiful location of a stunning creatures and all shown to us for free by an amazing photographer, so complaining seems churlish, but I do agree the sound in places overtakes the level of the narration, which I am sure could be tweaked Joshua, if you so wanted to.
Other than that nit pick, stunning work, bravo!
Dave
Indeed, and that was partly my concern in Reply #8.
Rob
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I was so taken with the beauty, I never noticed the music. Telling someone to turn down the volume is practical, not churlish. As my mom would say, you guys would gripe if you were hung with a new rope. :)
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I was so taken with the beauty, I never noticed the music. Telling someone to turn down the volume is practical, not churlish. As my mom would say, you guys would gripe if you were hung with a new rope. :)
Sharon, I don't think anyone is having a go at Joshua or complaining per se, we are just saying how much we enjoyed the video and how stunning it was, but that there are certain points within his short but none the less amazing film, where some of us viewers cannot clearly hear what Joshua is saying and we are enjoying it so much that would dearly like to hear what it is he is telling us.
Well that is what I meant anyway and I am sure that is also what Rajan and Rob were trying to say as well.
Dave
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Great stuff!
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It may be Josh's accent, I guess. I found the volume was "normal" in that it was an appropriate level with my normal system volume levels, and I could understand everything that he said, but I'm obviously more familiar with the accent. Stunning and inspiring work.
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It may be Josh's accent, I guess. I found the volume was "normal" in that it was an appropriate level with my normal system volume levels, and I could understand everything that he said, but I'm obviously more familiar with the accent. Stunning and inspiring work.
Alan McGilvray, Bill Lawry, Ian Chappell all had or have fine, perfectly understandable accents.
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You became familiar with listening to them, Rajan, and in a particular context where you would have anticipated much of what they were going to say. As I said, as a native Aussie, I understood Joshua without any problem, so I just suggested it may have been the accent - it's not a definitive claim!
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Phil, I wrote that with tongue partly in cheek. My error was in not including a smiley emoji.
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OK :-) That makes more sense!
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National Geographic have just published Ghosts of the Arctic Video along with some Behind the Scenes (http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/videos/ghosts-of-the-arctic/behind-the-scenes-of-ghosts-of-the-arctic-5201.aspx).
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National Geographic have just published Ghosts of the Arctic Video along with some Behind the Scenes (http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/videos/ghosts-of-the-arctic/behind-the-scenes-of-ghosts-of-the-arctic-5201.aspx).
I think National Geographic should host you on the Nat Geo Live circuits - audiences would be fascinated. This is fantastic.
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National Geographic have just published Ghosts of the Arctic Video along with some Behind the Scenes (http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/videos/ghosts-of-the-arctic/behind-the-scenes-of-ghosts-of-the-arctic-5201.aspx).
Oh. I want to see that place. Love the behind the scenes. What kind of gloves to you wear shooting in that weather? I got a Milwaukee Tool heated hand warmer last year which helps a lot.
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great video Joshua! The Arctic winter is simply amazing!
What kind of gloves to you wear shooting in that weather?
These are Heat3 gloves from an Austrian company called The Heat Company (http://www.theheatcompany.com/en/gloves/heat3)
I successfully use them in arctic winter conditions in Finnish Lapland, it is an intelligent design and keeps my fingers warm even in -30°C nights photographing Auroras (it also has a pouch for hand warmers).
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great video Joshua! The Arctic winter is simply amazing!
These are Heat3 gloves from an Austrian company called The Heat Company (http://www.theheatcompany.com/en/gloves/heat3)
I successfully use them in arctic winter conditions in Finnish Lapland, it is an intelligent design and keeps my fingers warm even in -30°C nights photographing Auroras (it also has a pouch for hand warmers).
Thanks Thomas!
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I enjoyed the video. As for voice vs. music volume I know from experience that sound mixing is difficult, especially outdoors. There are many variables involved, from the type of microphone used to the way it is recorded and finally mixed. Sound engineering and fine art photography are two different things!
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Thanks Thomas!
Yes Heat 3 Layered system are the gloves. I have found them good to -50 C with the addition of chemical hand warmers inside both the liner and the polar mit.
Im on my third pair of these gloves now. Honestly, their construction quality isn't that great. The stitching keeps coming apart on the liners; but.. they are well designed (if construction a bit shabbier than I would like - its just the finishing of the stitching that lets them down) and there has been a lot of thought go into them in terms of being able to use equipment whilst staying warm.
Cheers,