Daddy's Home

DADDY’S HOME
South Georgia - 2018

The vast number of penguin chicks in Gold Harbour in the early summer offers an opportunity to play with numbers. My team brought a ladder all the way from London, as I had a preconception that I might need to have a position of raised elevation to give depth.

In this photograph, I kNew my frame could not have any piece of white other than the father’s chest; that would create a tension point and kill the image. Such are the boundary lines in fine-art photography.

When looking for opportunities like this one in South Georgia, photographers need to keep an eye out for seals— especially fur seals. It pays to have either eyes in the back of your head or an assistant on the lookout for a maverick aggressive seal. Just two days before this photograph was taken, another photographer was attacked from behind by an aggressive seal. These attacks often happen when a photographer is lying down photographing penguins. They are so “in the zone” that they’re oblivious to the fact that they have invaded the personal territory of a mammal that we are sometimes complacent toward. Seal attacks can be fatal.

The photographer’s body was in an awful mess when he was taken back to the ship, and the decision was made to sail back to the Falklands immediately. It was a tough turn of events for the other passengers on the trip, as a two- week trip was cut short an hour into the first landing, but this was an emergency and the speed of the response ultimately saved the man’s life.
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