Day 5 and this is the first textural blog I’ve managed to get out! A reflection on the amount of things I’ve been shooting so far. Today we stopped to pick up more passengers (Graham Hill, Shlomo and Jude Kelly) so I took the opportunity to have a quick look around the port.
It was a working port, a few large ships and a swath of smaller fishing vessels, so it was probably a little naive being surprised at the sight of a whaling vessel off-loading it’s cargo. The man on board snagged a chunk of flesh onto a hooked stick held by another boiler-suit-cladded fisherman who in turn slung it into the back of a nearby pick-up. The amount of meat involved resembled the props department of a good horror movie, luckily for the weak of stomach, the whole show was sugar coated with a blanket of falling snow.
Yesterday was a rather amazing 24 hours for me, it started by having breakfast against a backdrop of leviathanic icebergs, followed by a shore landing at the mouth of the glacier reputed as having produced the ice which sank the Titanic. I then had Leslie Feist, Jarvis Cocker, KT Tunstall, Vanessa Carlton and Martha Wainwright in my viewfinder at the same time. If that wasn’t already enough, as night descended I set out on a zodiac (small boat for up to 12 people – coincidence?) with Chris Wainwright and using my new toy from Elinchrom helped him turn whole icebergs red (for those who haven’t played avoid-the-iceberg in a rubber speed boat at night, I highly recommend it). Finally, as a special treat, we were allowed to go to a bar on shore for the evening, where Kate, Luke, Leslie and Robyn (Hitchcock) performed on stage with the local band, Disko Bay Blues! Then to round it off, Jarvis held a disco of his own using a mini record deck he’d bought with him – a class act that man.
Photo: Nathan Gallagher.
I know this all sounds like I’m having a whale of a time (pardon the pun), and the truth is, I am. However, things are becoming quite apparent to me, the pop-stars and artists on this voyage are passionate about climate change beyond what you might expect.
Who knows when I’ll get to blog again, I’ll try to make time, but right now the sauna’s a-calling (need to warm my globes).
