APPRENTICE

This issue’s intrepid Apprentice joins travel, landscape, and wildlife pro Chris McLennan in the pristine Arctic wilderness of Svalbard

THE PRO

NAME: Chris McLennan

CAMERAS: D850 &Z 7II

New Zealander Chris is a professional travel photographer with 33 years’ experience whose work has seen him shooting for commercial clients in 60 countries and counting. He’s a Nikon New Zealand Ambassador, as well as a global ambassador for industry-leading brands Lowepro and Lexar. Chris heads photo expeditions to many exciting locations around the world, including Alaska, Svalbard, Papua New Guinea, USA, Tahiti, Solomon Islands, Mongolia, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Uganda. See his work and expeditions at www.chrismclennanphotography.comInstagram: @chris_mclennan1

THE APPRENTICE

NAME: Aurora Lampson 

CAMERAS: D850 & D810

Aurora is from California, USA, and works as a marketing and social media content producer for several global companies, including Lowepro. She has been studying photography for 10 years, starting out as a portrait photographer, and working her way to product photography. Upon starting to travel more, she has developed a new love for landscape and wildlife photography, and joined Chris on one of his summer workshops to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, high in the Arctic Circle. Instagram: @visionsbyaurora

Aurora had travelled halfway around the globe for what was to be an amazing experience on one of Chris’s photo expedition workshops. Her destination was Longyearbyen (which aptly translates to Long Year City), in Norway’s remote Svalbard archipelago. Her flight touched down at around 1:30am – though the sun was shining bright just as it would be at 1:30pm. Firmly within the Arctic Circle, this is the Land of the Midnight Sun, and getting used to 24 hours of sunshine was going to take a few days.

Longyearbyen is located at 78º North, making it the northernmost settlement of any size in the world, and where the duo and the rest of the expedition would be boarding the MS Polarfront, which would be their new floating home for the coming two weeks. The small group of photographers, a dozen in total, were the only guests on the ship, which Chris had chartered exclusively for the expedition. After spending a night in Longyearbyen, they set sail to explore the picturesque frozen Arctic wilderness and fascinating wildlife found within it.

TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT

1 GO-TO SETTINGS

Chris says… I suggested Aurora set Aperture Priority mode and, instead of shooting wide open, she closed the aperture a little to ensure enough depth of field should she slightly miss focus. Upping the ISO to 400 or so ensures a fast shutter speed to avoid the risk of motion blur.

2 SHOOTING SUN-STARS

Chris says… With the sun so low on the horizon, it’s the ideal opportunity to include it in your landscape shots. For this, I suggested Aurora close down her aperture to f/16 as bright points of light take on the shape of the closeddown aperture blades, which makes for the most beautiful sun-stars!

3 CONTINUOUS HIGH & AF

Chris says… Always be ready to shoot in bursts to capture the unpredictable nature of wildlife. Set Continuous High-speed shooting in combination with Continuous autofocus. If you use the central AF point by default, you can crop to compose your shot later, but when you have more time to consider composition, set an off-centre AF point.