"Off The Beaten Track" in Svalbard - Photographing Melting Ice, Polar Bears, and More

A few weeks ago, I shared the second episode of the video series "Off the Beaten Track," where photographer Chris Schmid visited the land of the Maasai people, photographing their culture and the wild animals of the National Reserve in Kenya. Chris recently released the third episode where he explores a much cooler climate. Svalbard is one of the most remote places in the Northern Hemisphere. This episode is beautifully shot with the DJI Inspire 1 and DJI Zenmuse X5, giving you a new look into the quickly melting ice and the polar bears who live there.  

There are less than 25,000 polar bears left on our planet, and that number is steadily dropping due to the melting ice. The bears depend on the ice for hunting prey. Chris traveled to Svalbard, an archipelago between Norway and the North Pole, to photograph these amazing creatures before they disappear. He brought along the Sony a7RII with four lenses, the 16-35mm, the 28mm FE 2.0, the FE 70-200mm 4.0 and also mounted on the Sony G 500mm 4.0 with the Sony LA-EA3 adapter.

Be sure and check out Chris' full gallery from this trip, and also check out the rest of his work on his website. You can follow him on his Vimeo to keep up to date with "Off the Beaten Track." 

As photographers, we have a chance to help others tell their story. Not all of us are able to travel to far off lands, but there are plenty of stories out there, even in our own communities. How can you use photography of world issues to raise awareness? 

Chelsey Rogers's picture

Chelsey Rogers is a commercial video editor. She's done work for Walmart, Hallmark, and many other Fortune 500 companies.

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3 Comments

superbe

Wow. Ice melts??? Who knew?

I live in South Carolina, I don't even know what ice is unless it's floating in my glass of sweet tea.

But in all seriousness, I'm not so sure about global warming, but something is going on in the environment that is melting ice and raising the sea level (Charleston; crazy floods and high tides!). Chris did an excellent job capturing the beauty of these creatures that may dwindle down to nothing sooner than we think.