Working up in the arctic the one photo you want to make sure you walk away with has ice in it. In Hudson Bay, everyday the ice would be somewhere else. The wind and tide is constantly keeping the icebergs moving so they never are in the same place twice. As a result, there are no do overs, there’s no going back the next day, there’s only here and now. So if that is the one shot you need and you see an opportunity, you better stop and take it. Interestingly enough the birds tend to gather around icebergs as they move along the shoreline.
The Beluga Whales would stir up fish and the icebergs would then trap the fish. This activity would make the birds gather around the ice to feed on the pools of fish. It’s a great time to be out there with a camera capturing this activity. I used the D5 and 600f/4 with the TC-17EII and focused on this Common Eider. The Eider is a really big duck but a rather striking one. The Common Eider has a brilliant combination of black, white, yellow, orange and a little green. But that black is all it takes in a monochromatic image like this one, to really stand out. It’s the reverse of light and bright. When everything is light the eye instantly goes to the darkest spot, in this case the Eider.