PROVIDENCE, RI – Three internationally renowned photographers will travel with polar cruise expert Poseidon Expeditions on select voyages in 2017 and 2018. On these journeys the photographers will host seminars and workshops for passengers.
The celebrity photographers are Filip Kulisev, James Balog and David McKay. They will headline an accomplished Expedition Team of top specialists including scientists, marine biologists, geologists, explorers and historians who regularly accompany each Poseidon Expeditions departure.
Filip Kulisev, whose Amazing Planet series has captured international attention, is collaborating with Poseidon Expeditions to secure a new series of images of icy landscapes and diverse polar world wildlife on his multiple voyages into the polar realm. This partnership is in preparation for a late autumn 2018 exhibit at Monaco’s Galerie des Pecheurs. Monaco’s Prince Albert II will preside over the exhibition’s opening.
Nikolay Saveliev, President of Poseidon Expeditions said that the company is honored to be a part of the project. “We believe that this new chapter of the Amazing Planet series will promote a special appreciation and respect for the Polar Regions, and help to encourage conservation and preservation of these wild unique places for future generations.”
Kulisev’s work and publications are part of the collections of eminent personalities around the world, including Pope Francis, His Royal Highness Prince Charles, His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Slovak President Andrej Kiska, and many others. He will join the following departures:
- 22 May - 06 June 2017 South and West Greenland and Disko Bay
- 14 June - 27 June 2017 North Pole
- 28 June - 08 July 2017 West Spitsbergen & Ice Cap
- 14 Aug -29 Aug 2017 Franz Josef Land
- 03 Jan - 23 Jan 2018 Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctica
Renowned National Geographic photographer James Balog will join a July 8-20, 2018 North Pole voyage aboard the nuclear-powered icebreaker, I/B 50 Years of Victory. He and his team are famous for the largest calving glacier ever captured on film. His work explores the relationship between humans and nature. Since the early 1980s Balog has photographed such subjects as endangered animals, North America’s old-growth forests, and polar ice. His work aims to combine insights from art and science to produce innovative, dynamic and sometimes shocking interpretations of our changing world. His best-known project explores the impact of climate change on the world’s glaciers. In 2007 he initiated the Extreme Ice Survey, the most wide-ranging ground-based photographic glacier study ever conducted.
National Geographic magazine showcased Balog's ice work in 2007, 2010, and 2013, and the project is featured in the 2009 NOVA documentary Extreme Ice as well as the 75-minute film Chasing Ice, which premiered in January 2012. Balog’s book Ice: Portraits of the World’s Vanishing Glaciers summarizes the work of the Extreme Ice Survey through 2012. Chasing Ice won an Emmy Award in 2014 and was short-listed for an Oscar. It has been screened at the White House, in the U.S. Congress, in the U.K. House of Commons, and at the United Nations. It has been the subject of features on the NBC Nightly News, ABC Nightline, The Late Show with David Letterman, PBS’s Moyers & Company, and Real Time with Bill Maher.
In January 2016, Balog began production on another feature-length documentary film, Life Tectonic (working title), exploring the environmental effects of the Anthropocene. The film is scheduled to debut in early 2018.
David McKay, author of the award-winning book, Yuba Seasons: Images of the Wild & Scenic South Yuba River, along with several of his professional colleagues will lead a photography expedition on a June 27-July 5, 2018 West Spitsbergen and Polar Ice Edge trip aboard the 114-passenger M/V Sea Spirit. He has been a professional photographer for over 40 years and began teaching photography in 1976. Since 1974, McKay has had numerous shows and exhibits, won several awards, and has had his work published in national newspapers, magazines, brochures and books.
McKay says, “I am a photographer of the environment. Whether it is a cityscape or landscape, I immerse myself in my surroundings and capture them in creative ways through my lens. You can't force creativity. You have to allow it, by being a part of where you are, not as a detached observer. I become something different when I pick up a camera and look through that magical window.”