AntArcticA
33
of Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial
Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The
ten-man Ross Sea Party – which
included four Australians – arrived
on Ross Island in McMurdo Sound
on 17 January 1915 after leaving
Hobart on Christmas Eve 1914.
The party was tasked with laying
supply depots for Shackleton’s
expedition which planned to make
the first overland crossing of the
Antarctic continent. The route from
the Ross Sea to the Weddell Sea- via the South Pole – represented
2900 kilometres of hard trekking.
Things did not go well. During a
fierce blizzard on 6 May 1915, the
sea ice broke away from shore,
taking with it the party’s ship
Aurora which was carried 1100
kilometres north and subsequently
became trapped in sea ice. It
eventually made it to New Zealand
in April 1916, but the Ross Sea
Party members were left stranded
for two winters and without a
lot of the equipment or food that
they’d need to survive. Fortuitously,
the supplies and food left behind
by Captain Robert Scott’s ill-fated
Terra Nova Expedition were located
and, remarkably, the depot laying
program was
commenced in
September 1915
and completed
by mid-March in
1916. Three of the
group died – one
from the disease
scurvy and two
who vanished in
a blizzard – but
on 10 January
1917, the Aurora
returned to pick
up the remaining
seven. All four of
the Australians
survived.
In the comfort
of Qantas’s
business class,
it might seem
hard to appreciate
what these men
went through, but
funnily enough as
the flight proceeds and you begin
to realise just how inhospitable it is
down there, you really do start to
marvel at their endeavours. Even
today with modern equipment and
communications, this is a place
that punishes mistakes or even
simple carelessness with fatal
consequences.
The broken sea ice gives way to
a solid mass of whiteness as we
fly further south and it’s hard to
see where the sea ends and the
coastline begins. Small islands are
completely surrounded by thick ice.
These ice shelves can be up to 60
metres above sea level, but there
are hundreds of meters extending
underwater. The biggest of them –
the Ross Ice Shelf which is much
further south again – covers around
472,000 square kilometre so it’s
roughly the same size as Canada’s
Yukon territory.
Eventually we turn north – which
is pretty well the only direction
from here – and fly over Victoria
Land which is still part of New
Zealand’s slice of Antarctica – the
continent is divided up pretty much
like a cheese round with all points
ending at the South Pole.White Light
The snow and ice is occasionally
punctuated by mountain peaks
and the valleys are filled with
glaciers. The Antarctica ice sheet
has an average thickness of
1800 metres, but can be up to
4800 metres... that’s nearly five
kilometres deep. Here you’re not
only struck by the vastness, but
also by the emptiness. Even flying
over the remoter parts of Australia
you’re likely to see the odd track,
mustering yard or water-pumping
windmill, but there’s absolutely
nothing here... because, more
than likely, no humans have even
been here. It’s the last truly pristine
environment on the planet.
I try out Sigma’s 150-600mm
f5.0-6.3 DG OS HSM – another
Sport line lens – which is great for
pulling in a distant peak or isolating
details such as patterns made by
crevasses. Image stabilisation
comes into its own in this
situation, enabling safe hand-held
shooting even at 600mm although,
of course, there’s no shortage
of light. With so much reflection,
the camera metering will want
to underexpose. I like shooting
with shutter-priority auto exposure
control for aerial photography as
depth-of-field is less of a concern- especially at these heights – and
using faster speeds is desirable
for dealing with movement and
vibrations. It may seem counter-
intuitive, but dialling in some plus
exposure compensation helps
avoid massive underexposure
while still ensuring tonality
“The
AnTArcTicA
ice sheeT hAs
An AverAge
Thickness of
1800 meTres,
buT cAn be
up To 4800
meTres...
ThAT’s
neArly five
kilomeTres
deep.”
CamMayJune17_026-034 SigmaAntarctica.indd 33 13/04/2017 12:17 AM