Michael Frye Photography

Coming Home to Yosemite

Michael Frye — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 21:41:10 +0000

Half Dome and the Merced River at sunrise, Yosemite NP, California

Claudia and I have been home for a couple of weeks, which is a nice break from all our travels. I love all the trips we’ve been able to go on, but it feels good to chill out a bit at our own house, and sleep in our own bed.

And we don’t have to travel far from home to be in an exotic location, since we live only an hour away from Yosemite Valley.

Whenever we’re home I keep an eye on the weather to see if there might be any interesting or unusual conditions in the park. But it’s been a weird winter. We’ve had a few short spells of wet weather, with multiple storms and copious amounts of precipitation. During one of those stretches in February over two feet of snow accumulated on the floor of Yosemite Valley, which is highly unusual.

But in between those occasional wet periods it’s been completely dry and warm for weeks on end. The overall precipitation this winter is well below average, the snow has already melted except at the highest elevations, and spring is arriving early everywhere.

We did get a couple of small rainstorms last week, and Claudia and I went up to the park two mornings in a row to try and catch the clearing storms. I also made it up to Yosemite Valley one morning in February during that big snow event.

I thought it might be nice to post some images made close to home for a change, so here are a few photos from those trips to the park, along with a couple of time-lapse videos from Claudia and me.

Not a bad place to come home to.

— Michael Frye

Misty morning from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, California

Mist surrounding Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite NP, California

Clouds and mist wrapping around El Capitan, Yosemite NP, California

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He lives near Yosemite National Park in California, but travels extensively to photograph natural landscapes in the American West and throughout the world.

Michael uses light, weather, and design to make photographs that capture the mood of the landscape, and convey the beauty, power, and mystery of nature. His work has received numerous awards, including the North American Nature Photography Association’s 2023 award for Fine Art in Nature Photography. Michael’s photographs have appeared in publications around the world, and he’s the author and/or principal photographer of several books, including Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, and The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite.

Michael loves to share his knowledge of photography through articles, books, workshops, online courses, and his blog. He’s taught over 200 workshops focused on landscape photography, night photography, digital image processing, and printing.

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Antarctic Light

Michael Frye — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 21:24:48 +0000

Snow-capped spires, Antarctica. 158mm, 1/500 sec. at f/11, ISO 500.

It’s taken me a long time to go through all my photos from our January trip to Antarctica – all 41,000 of them! I previously posted images of natural ice sculptures, and penguins. But this time I thought I’d focus on wider landscapes, and the beautiful Antarctic light.

Antarctic light is special. When we arrived in early January the sun rose at 2:45 a.m., and at an azimuth of about 160 degrees. That’s just a tad to the east of due south (180 degrees). Then the sun carved a low path through the sky to the east, north, and west, finally setting (at midnight) just a little bit west of where it rose, at an azimuth of about 200 degrees. It never got truly dark.

But the best part was that sunrises and sunsets were long, lingering affairs. Beautiful golden light lasted hours.

Of course skies could be overcast, which would snuff out that golden light. It could rain or snow. Last year we were actually enveloped in fog for a day and a half (which I loved). Sometimes – rarely – we had a completely sunny day or two.

But often we’d get a mix of sun and clouds. We frequently saw clear skies over land, where glaciers and icecaps created cool downdrafts that inhibited cloud formation, while the waterways were covered with clouds. (We observed the same thing in Greenland last September.)

This mix of sun and clouds was often quite beautiful, with dappled, chiaroscuro light, sunbeams, or dramatic clouds. But sometimes the most interesting light was in the distance, at places where land and water met. So my 100-400mm lens got a workout focusing on that light against distant slices of mountains and clouds.

Most of these photos were handheld, of course, either from our ship (the Hans Hansson) or a zodiac. Handholding with a long lens required reasonably fast shutter speeds, which in turn sometimes required pushing up the ISO. But modern noise-reduction tools have become so good that I don’t worry about that much. I know I can still get sharp, noise-free results that will hold up even in a large print. It’s actually quite liberating.

Of course I would still try to keep the ISO as low as possible, which meant using as slow a shutter speed I could get away with to avoid pushing up the ISO more than necessary. But a rocking boat with a telephoto lens is a recipe for blurry photos, even with image stabilization, so at longer focal lengths I kept the shutter speed high – at least 1/350th of a second.

I also kept the camera in continuous shooting mode, and fired off bursts of three or four frames at a time. Often the first and last frames of a burst would be a little soft, because pressing or releasing the shutter button would cause some movement. But the middle frames, where I was holding the camera steady, would be sharp. Using that technique meant having more photos to edit, but it was worth it to get sharp images with as little noise as possible.

Photographing from a moving boat can also sometimes require making quick decisions about composition. I actually started my career photographing mostly wildlife, and with moving subjects like animals you often have to make instantaneous decisions about composition – where to place the animal in the frame, whether to include its surroundings, how much of those surroundings, and so on. That training has helped me with landscape photographs. Even on land I sometimes have to make fast compositional decisions before the light changes. And a moving boat can force you to make those choices almost instantaneously.

I think any kind of cross-training you can do as a photographer is helpful. Practicing street photography can help your nature photographs. Learning studio lighting will increase your understanding of natural light. Composing landscape photographs can help you make better compositions with wildlife images, and vice versa. It’s all photography, and while there are certain skills that might apply more to some genres than others, there’s a lot of crossover, and the most essential elements are the same.

I used all those varied skills in Antarctica while photographing the abundant wildlife, or composing landscape images from a moving platform. But it was all a lot of fun, as there were photographs everywhere, with an endless array of spectacular landscapes to go along with that Antarctic light. Sometimes during a long, lingering sunset I stayed on deck for hours, unable to tear myself away for fear of missing something. Except that occasionally, when things got really good, I’d go below and encourage people who weren’t already on deck to get out and photograph the magic light!

— Michael Frye

Peak, glacier, and clouds, Antarctica. 241mm, 1/350 sec. at f/11, ISO 100.

Ice tower and icefield, Antarctica. 315mm, 1/750 sec. at f/11, ISO 100.

Clouds, sunbeams, and icebergs, Antarctica. 196mm, 1/750 sec. at f/11, ISO 640.

Clouds, sunbeams, and whale spouts, Antarctica. 100mm, 1/750 sec. at f/13, ISO 100.

Ice-covered mountains under a mackerel sky, Antarctica. 37mm, 1/125 sec. at f/11, ISO 100. (This was actually photographed from land, with a tripod.)

Mountains and whitecaps, Gerlache Strait, Antarctica. 203mm, 1/750 sec. at f/16, ISO 3200. I wanted to ensure that both the foreground waves and background peak were in focus with this long lens, so I stopped down to f/16. Waters were rough, as you can tell, and the ship was pitching, so I set my shutter speed to 1/750 sec. to ensure getting sharp handheld images. Those settings, plus the low light levels late in the day, meant pushing the ISO up to 3200 to get the right exposure, but Adobe’s Denoise did a great job of dealing with the noise.

Icebergs and sunbeams, Antarctica. This was a handheld bracketed sequence – three shots, two stops apart. I used Lightroom’s HDR merge with “Auto-Align” checked to blend the three exposures, and it worked perfectly. 244mm, shutter speeds from 1/250 sec. to 1/4000 sec. at f/16, ISO 320.

Icebergs and mountains at sunset, Antarctica. 156mm, 1/1000 sec. at f/16, ISO 100.

Mountains, clouds, and icebergs, Antarctica. 274mm, 1/750 sec. at f/11, ISO 160.

Rocks and icebergs at sunset, Antarctica. 400mm, 1/750 sec. at f/8, ISO 1600.

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Florida Birds

Michael Frye — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:17:15 +0000

Roseate spoonbill nest with adults and nestlings, or “teaspoons”. It required patience to get the right light (soft light as a cloud passed over the sun), with all four birds in good positions, and their eyes all visible. Having the one nestling spreading its wings and opening its beak (begging for food) was a bonus. I composed this to include some of the saw palmetto the nest was built around to show the environment. 400mm, 1/1500 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 640.

Claudia and I recently returned from Florida, where I was one of the instructors at the Out of Merritt Island Bird Photography Conference. What a great event! This was the first time the Out of Chicago team has put on a bird-photography conference, and it was a lot of fun. My fellow instructors were all fantastic, the participants were super-nice – and eager to learn – and, as usual, the Out of Chicago team did a great job organizing the conference.

And then, of course, there were the birds. I had photographed birds in Florida briefly in 2002, but this was the first time I’d been back since then, and the first time I’d made a trip to Florida specifically focused on bird photography. And it’s a wonderful place for birds. There’s an incredible variety of species – and photogenic species at that – plus so many of the birds are easily approachable.

In Florida, species that would fly away at the first sight of a human in other parts of the country will allow you to practically walk right up to them. It’s pretty amazing. And it was an ideal place to hold a conference like this, since there were endless opportunities, and people could concentrate on learning lighting, composition, action, camera settings, and technique, rather than worrying about how to get close to a bird.

My fellow instructors in this conference all had different styles and approaches to photographing birds, which was cool to see, and I learned things from all of them. My teaching partner for the field sessions during the conference was Ray Hennessy, who is an amazing photographer and wonderful teacher. It’s rare to find people who are both good at what they do, and good at teaching it as well, but Ray is one of those rare birds (pardon the pun).

Although Ray and I have different styles in many ways, we definitely have things in common. Ray is known for his “small-in-the-frame” wildlife photos, where the animal isn’t necessarily filling the frame, and he’s using the animal’s surroundings to create something artistic, and add to the photograph’s mood.

And I try to do that as well. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know that I like to make landscape photographs that convey a mood or feeling. And I try to do the same with wildlife images. I bring my landscape-photography sensibilities to photographing animals, which means trying to capture a mood, and, if possible, tell a story about the place – the habitat the animal depends on for breeding, resting, and feeding. That could be just a small slice of the animal’s surroundings, or it could be a much larger piece.

But I’m not averse to taking closeup photos of birds either. While I may look for certain things, the animals, light, clouds, wind, and surroundings dictate what’s possible. So I try to be opportunistic, and take what the situation gives me. If there’s an opportunity to create something moody, or something that shows the animal’s habitat (or both), great. But I’m not going to pass up the chance to photograph some interesting behavior or action, or just show a beautiful bird in beautiful light.

So here are some of my favorite photographs from Florida. I hope this selection shows some of the wonderful variety of birds, behaviors, and situations we encountered on the trip. It was a special treat to photograph these birds, both while scouting before the conference, and then during the conference alongside the participants and my fellow instructors. I hope we get to do it again.

— Michael Frye

P.S. Wildlife photography often requires fast shutter speeds to freeze motion. And that frequently means pushing up the ISO, which, of course, can produce noise. But you can encounter noise with landscape photos as well – at night or dusk, or when you need to fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of windblown branches, or in low-light situations where you can’t use a tripod and have to handhold the camera.

My next webinar addresses all the ins and outs of sharpening and noise reduction, and there’s still time to get the early-bird discount. Use the code SHARP20 to get 20% off until midnight tonight (Sunday, March 21st). Click here to sign up or learn more:

It’s All About the Details: Taking the Mystery out of Sharpening and Noise Reduction

May 18th, 2026

Tri-colored heron and black mangroves, Florida. I’m always looking for interesting surroundings for wildlife subjects to add interest and show where the animal lives. A recent freeze had caused the mangrove leaves along this waterway to turn rusty, creating photogenic patterns and colors. As this tri-colored heron moved along the bank, fishing, I picked a spot ahead of its path with some nice vegetation, sat down, and waited for the heron to move into position. 327mm, 1/350 sec. at f/11, ISO 2500.

Purple gallinule, Florida. Purple gallinules are related to coots, but much more colorful. In this case the surroundings weren’t that photogenic, so I got down low and close to show the bird’s colors, and waited for a moment with an interesting pose or gesture. 479mm, 1/1000 sec. at f/8, ISO 640.

Anhinga, Florida. I liked how the backlight glowed through the anhinga’s feathers and beak, and was able to get close enough to emphasize those elements in the composition. 433mm, 1/1500 sec. at f/8, ISO 500.

White ibis foraging in a saltwater marsh, Florida. Again, the surroundings weren’t that exciting, so I got low and close and tried to catch an interesting moment. 560mm, 1/1000 sec. at f/8, ISO 1600.

Great blue heron with nesting material, Florida. This was a spur-of-the-moment quick capture as I spotted this heron flying into its nest. Only later did I see that it had nesting material in its beak. 560mm, 1/1500 sec. at f/8, ISO 640.

Great egret adult and nestlings, Florida. This nest was in deep shade underneath a saw palmetto, but I liked the soft backlight, and looked for a moment when the nestlings were active. 560mm, 1/1000 sec. at f/8, ISO 400.

Snowy egret hunting through pond lilies in a Florida marsh. The chiaroscuro light created some drama here, with the pond lilies showing a small slice of characteristic habitat. 400mm, 1/2000 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 640.

American bittern with a snake in a Florida marsh. I heard a rustle in the reeds near a path, investigated, and found this American bittern with a snake it had caught. The snake had wrapped itself around a reed, as well as the bird’s beak and neck, in an attempt to surive. Eventually the bittern took the snake behind some reeds, out of sight, so I wasn’t able to see how this drama ended, but I assume the bittern prevailed. 400mm, 1/1500 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 5000.

Brown pelicans in breeding plumage roosting on rocks next to the Atlantic Ocean, Florida. This was rather harsh, midday light, but it worked for highlighting these two pelicans and the splashing water. 183mm, 1/1000 sec. at f/16, ISO 400.

White ibises and roseate spoonbills, Florida. I noticed this flock of white ibises, focused on them, and then two spoonbills banked and joined the flock at just the right moment. 391mm, 1/1500 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 1250.

Double-crested cormorants roosting in a tree at sunrise, Florida. Seeing this tree full of roosting cormorants with the sun rising behind them, I realized this was a great opportunity to show birds and some of the Florida habitat with dramatic light. 400mm, 1/1000 sec. at f/11, ISO 100.

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Photographing the Upcoming Lunar Eclipse

Michael Frye — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 23:22:06 +0000

Lunar eclipse sequence, Trona Pinnacles, California, January 20th, 2019

On March 3rd people in many parts of the world (including most of North America, Eastern Asia, Australia, and New Zealand) will be able to see a total lunar eclipse. This page shows where the eclipse will be visible, as well as the timing of the event.

Here in the U.S. the eclipse will occur during the wee hours of the morning on March 3rd. So photographing the eclipse will require losing some sleep, but the fully-eclipsed moon will be fairly low in the sky, making it easier to line up the eclipse with an interesting foreground.

At my house in central California the moon will be totally eclipsed from 3:05 a.m. to 4:02 a.m., starting at 39 degrees above the horizon (to the west-southwest) and lowering to 28 degrees. That’s not super low, but not bad. Farther east, in Chicago, the total eclipse will run from 5:05 a.m. to 6:02 a.m., starting at 14 degrees high and lowering to 3 degrees (totality will end just before sunrise). Even farther east, in Boston, the total eclipse will begin just before sunrise, with the moon barely above the horizon, so you’ll need a clear view of the western horizon to see it at all. (That’s true for many East-Coast locations, especially in the far northeast.)

Planning Eclipse Photos

So how did I figure out where the moon would be for each of those locations? Well there’s an app for that. Actually several apps – and I’m sure most of my readers are familiar with some of them. To me the most useful are PhotoPills, The Photographer’s Ephemeris, The Photographer’s Ephemeris 3D, and Planit Pro.

All of these apps are helpful for photo planning, though they can be complex, so there’s a learning curve for each of them. But do you need to master every feature of these apps to use them effectively? I don’t think so. The vast majority of the time I use a few simple, powerful tools to see exactly where the sun, moon, Milky Way, or any celestial object will line up with the landscape. To me, the most helpful tools are the AR (augmented reality) modes in all these apps, and the VR (virtual reality) modes in The Photographer’s Ephemeris 3D and Planit Pro.

It’s these modes (along with a few other things) that will be the focus of my upcoming webinar, Photo Planning Made Simple. During the webinar I’ll talk about planning for eclipses, of course, (including the upcoming lunar eclipse), but also how to plan for any other situation – sunrises, sunsets, moonrises, moonsets, the Milky Way position, and much more. But we’ll stick to the things you need to know, bypassing the extraneous stuff that only gets in the way.

The webinar is coming up soon – this Saturday! But if you can’t attend live you can still watch the recording later. (The recording will be available indefinitely to everyone who signs up.) Click here to register or learn more:

Photo Planning Made Simple, Saturday, February 21st, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time (1:00 p.m. Eastern Time)

For the lunar eclipse on March 3rd, here are the important moments:

Partial eclipse begins: March 3rd at 9:50 UT, 1:50 a.m. PST
Total eclipse begins: March 3rd at 11:04 UT, 3:04 a.m. PST
Maximum eclipse: March 3rd at 11:34 UT, 3:34 a.m. PST
Total eclipse ends: March 3rd at 12:03 UT, 4:03 a.m. PST
Partial eclipse ends: March 3rd at 13:17 UT, 5:17 a.m. PST

When the partial eclipse begins the moon will become a smaller and smaller crescent as the earth’s shadow seems to take a bite out of the moon. During the total eclipse the moon will look much dimmer, and turn orange or even red-orange in color. The sky will be full of stars, as if on a moonless night. Just after the total eclipse the moon will return to a slender crescent and then get larger and larger, until the eclipse ends and the moon becomes completely full again. (On the East Coast you’ll only be able to see the beginning of this sequence, up to the total eclipse.)

Of course weather always plays a big role in eclipse photography, so keep an eye on the forecasts, and be prepared to change plans if the outlook doesn’t look good for your planned location.

How to Photograph the Eclipse

I wrote an earlier post that explains in detail how to photograph a lunar eclipse (including exposures for different phases of the eclipse), so rather than repeat all that here, please just follow this link.

Happy eclipse hunting!

— Michael Frye

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Out of Yosemite 2027

Michael Frye — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 23:11:22 +0000

Three Brothers, Sentinel Rock, and the Merced River at sunrise, Yosemite NP, California

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be teaching at another Out of Yosemite Landscape Photography Conference, January 18–22, 2027!

The original Out of Yosemite conference in 2020 was a fantastic event, and I’m looking forward to doing it again. Once again I’ll be teaching alongside an outstanding lineup of instructors: Joshua Cripps, Jerry Dodrill, Albert Dros, Franka Gabler, Charlotte Gibb, Michael Gordon, Huibo Hou, Chuck Kimmerle, Jennifer King, Colleen Miniuk, William Neill, Alex Noriega, and Beth Young.

We’ll also be joined by four of Ansel Adams’s former assistants – Ted Orland, Chris Rainier, Alan Ross, and John Sexton – who will each deliver a keynote presentation.

This conference should fill quickly, so if you’d like to go I encourage you to grab a spot soon. You can use the code FRYEYOSEMITE500 to receive $500 off your registration. The code expires at the end of the day on February 16. You can learn more about the conference and sign up here:

Out of Yosemite Landscape Photography Conference, January 18-22, 2027

I hope to see you there!

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Out of Yosemite Conference; Teton Views

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Leaping Penguins

Michael Frye — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 22:02:57 +0000

Porpoising chinstrap penguins, Antarctica. 355mm, 1/1500 sec at f/16, ISO 5000. I needed a fast shutter speed to freeze motion, and a small aperture to get all the penguins in focus. That required pushing the ISO quite high, but I can deal with the noise (Adobe’s Denoise did a great job), while I can’t fix a blurry photo.

Penguins are so much fun to watch. I need penguins in my life every day. I think everyone does. Luckily I can watch Claudia’s videos whenever I need a penguin fix.

It’s super fun watching penguins at their nests, with the adults performing displays and calls, stealing rocks from neighboring nests, and feeding their adorable chicks. But it’s also highly entertaining to watch them away from their nests – especially as they’re porpoising out of the water, jumping ashore, or leaping into the water en masse.

Penguins are fast and agile swimmers. Gentoo penguins are thought to be the fastest swimmers, reaching speeds of up to 22 mph. (This video shows how fast and agile they are underwater.)

While traveling they frequently jump out of the water – “porpoising,” as it’s called. Porpoising allows them to catch a breath without slowing down (note how their beaks are all open in the photograph above). It may also help them avoid predators, and see over longer distances to navigate.

This porpoising behavior is cool to see in person, but very hard to photograph. Most of the time it’s nearly impossible to predict where they’ll pop up, and by the time you train your lens on them they’ve disappeared back under the water.

Our best opportunity to photograph porpoising penguins came in zodiacs while we hovered offshore from a large chinstrap colony. Groups of one, two, or three dozen penguins were swimming to and from a beach near the colony, porpoising as they went.

So we parked the zodiac along their travel route, looking toward the reflection of a black volcanic cliff, which gave the penguins a nice dark background. We would alert each other as a group approached, then try to follow their path, estimating where they might pop up, and ready to mash down the shutter button when they leapt into the air.

A good percentage of these photos were out of focus, or caught penguins at the edge of the frame, or showed only their feet as they re-entered the water. But a surprising number were actually sharp, with penguins in good positions. Part of that was due simply to the sheer numbers of penguins swimming by, which increased the odds of getting lucky. But we also got lots of practice, which allowed us to better anticipate their movements.

The photo above is my favorite image from that session, and probably my best porpoising penguin photo from our two trips to Antarctica. But it was a challenge!

We also watched groups of penguins leaping into and out of the water along the shore. Aside from southern giant petrels, which I showed in my last post, the main penguin predators on the Antarctic Peninsula are leopard seals. Leopard seals will wait offshore from a penguin colony and try to pick off penguins as they swim in and out. The penguins know this, and join into groups to help evade the seals. A large group of penguins jumping into the water at once, then darting away in different directions, might confuse a leopard seal and make it difficult for the seal to pick out an individual to chase.

We saw this behavior most often with Adélie penguins. Adélies would head down from their nests to the shore, then wait at certain designated spots where they commonly entered or exited the water. When enough penguins had gathered they would all start moving toward the shore, then hesitate. Who wants to go in first? Not me! You go first! Eventually one would dive in, with the others following closely behind. But often some would chicken out and hop back onshore.

This photo shows a group of Adélies jumping into the water. There are twenty penguins visible here, but I can tell by the splashes that at least two more have already entered the water:

Adélie penguins diving into the water, Antarctica. 253mm, 1/1500 sec at f/11, ISO 2500.

You’ll find a few more of my photos of leaping penguins at the bottom of this post. But Claudia also put together a great video of leaping penguins. I could watch this over and over:

We feel so lucky to have spent time with penguins on our two trips to Antarctica. They’re such a treat to watch. I hope we get to go back. But in the meantime, the photos bring back memories, and the videos make me feel like I’m there again.

— Michael Frye

Circle of Light

P.S. Claudia is a wonderfully talented, creative photographer and videographer. She and five other photographers have formed a group called Circle of Light, and they’re poised to launch a new ebook soon. Claudia and I are both really excited about this new venture; here’s what she has to say about joining this group:

I’m pleased to introduce Circle of Light, a photography collective I’ve joined with Charlotte Gibb, Anna Morgan, Jennifer Renwick, Michele Sons, and Sarah Marino.

I’ve been immersed in professional landscape and nature photography for years, but usually as an observer and supporter. Most of what I photograph stays private, just between me, Michael, our cats, a few friends, and the landscapes I visit. But Circle of Light has changed something for me.

I’ve known all of these women for some time and deeply admired their work. What brought us together wasn’t just mutual respect, but ongoing conversations about what truly matters in nature photography – the importance of knowing a place deeply, of returning again and again, of forming authentic relationships with the landscapes we photograph. We wanted to create something personal and meaningful that honored those connections, and it’s those connections that have inspired me to share more of my work in our first group project.

We’re finalizing the design now for our new ebook collaboration, The Nature of Place: Personal Narratives in Landscape Photography, and the excitement is building! We expect to release the ebook in late April 2026, with more details coming this spring.

I’m honored to be part of this circle.

—Claudia Welsh

Learn More About Circle of Light:

And getting back to penguins, here are a few more photos of them leaping:

Gentoo penguin leaping across rocks, Antarctica. 112mm, 1/1500 sec at f/8, ISO 1250.

Gentoo penguins diving off an iceberg, Antarctica. 400mm, 1/1500 sec at f/16, ISO 250.

Gentoo penguin with mountains and glaciers, Antarctica. 64mm, 1/500 sec at f/16, ISO 500.

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Petrels and Penguins

Michael Frye — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 22:22:54 +0000

Southern giant petrel chasing a chinstrap penguin, Antarctica (it didn’t catch it)

On one of our zodiac cruises in Antarctica we visited a large chinstrap penguin colony, where penguins gathered on a black-sand beach as they were coming and going. We couldn’t land on this beach due to rough surf and high penguin activity, but our zodiac drivers hovered just offshore, giving us a great view.

The penguins attracted southern giant petrels. As you can see from the accompanying photos and video, giant petrels are big birds – larger than the chinstraps – with a six- to seven-foot wingspan. Petrels are quite aggressive, and will sometimes hunt penguins. They usually can’t catch a healthy adult penguin, but can catch chicks, or a sick or injured adult.

As we watched, we saw an immature petrel hunting penguins, so we tried to photograph this behavior. (Immature giant petrels are all brown, while adults are brown and white.) The photograph above shows this petrel chasing a chinstrap into the water (it didn’t catch it). The petrel walked up and down the beach, sometimes chasing after penguins, but with no success while we watched it. As the petrel patrolled the beach, penguins began to “mob” it, gathering around it and trying to chase it away, as you can see in this next image:

Chinstrap penguins mobbing a southern giant petrel, Antarctica

Eventually this petrel flew off to another part of the beach, and we realized why: apparently another petrel had caught a penguin, and all the nearby petrels gathered and fought over the carcass. This photo shows two petrels fighting:

Southern giant petrels fighting over a penguin carcass, Antarctica

As the petrels tussled over the penguin carcass, we also saw them performing dominance displays. Sometimes this just meant raising their tails. Sometimes this involved what biologists call a “sealmaster” posture, where the bird holds its head and wings outstretched, with the head pointing toward its opponent and the wingtips pointed downward.

Claudia made a great video showing the petrels feeding on the penguin in the surf, fighting over the carcass, and making dominance displays, including the “sealmaster” posture, and another display where one of them waves its head from side to side. Watching this video you’ll probably feel sorry for the penguin, as we did, but it’s really interesting seeing the petrel behavior. That’s nature I guess. Here’s Claudia’s video:

Few animals can adapt to Antarctica’s extreme climate, but those that do are remarkable creatures. Penguins have given up the ability to fly in order to increase their aquatic agility. They’re superb swimmers, which allows them to efficiently feed on the abundant marine life in Antarctica (especially krill), yet they can still nest on land in relative safety because there are no land mammals to prey on them. But wherever there’s a potential food source someone will find a way to exploit it, so the giant petrels have learned to hunt penguins, with some success. It was fascinating to watch this in action.

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Ice Sculptures; Life on Ice

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Ice Sculptures

Michael Frye — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 20:35:40 +0000

Icy glow, Antarctica. We were lucky to find this beautiful backlight catching the tops of these ice fingers.

Claudia and I just returned from Antarctica. This was our second trip to the bottom of the world, and it was just as amazing and wonderful as the first. On both trips I tried to make photographs that capture something of what it’s like to be there, but even my best images can’t convey the actual experience. It’s truly like traveling to a different planet.

Once again I was teaching for Visionary Wild aboard our small, chartered ship, the Hans Hansson. This time my co-instructor was Visionary Wild founder and owner Justin Black, and we shared the experience with a wonderful, fun group of participants, along with the ship’s small, stellar crew. Most of the crew members were the same as last year, so it was great to see familiar faces, and they couldn’t have been nicer.

Although I’d probably take any opportunity to go back to Antarctica on any ship, I know the experiences aboard the Hans Hansson have spoiled me. We get to spend almost two full weeks in Antarctica, eliminating at least four days (round trip) of rough seas across the Drake Passage by flying to King George Island. Better yet, since we’re the only party aboard the ship, we have great flexibility to modify our itinerary to take advantage of conditions, and make spontaneous detours to interesting icebergs or other things we find. And when we go ashore to a penguin colony it’s just us – no more than 15 people including participants, photography instructors, and a couple members of the ship’s crew as guides. Larger ships can send up to 100 passengers ashore at a time (plus guides). I can’t think of a better way to experience and photograph this place.

On last year’s trip I captured over 35,000 frames. This year, since I’d been to Antarctica before, I figured I would be more selective. Yet somehow I exceeded last year’s number, and came home with over 41,000 new raw files! Again, that’s largely due to the type of photography required. We had a lot of great opportunities for wildlife photography this trip, and photographing animals usually requires taking a lot of frames to get one good one. But in Antarctica you’re also usually photographing landscapes from a moving ship or zodiac, so the scenes and juxtapositions are constantly changing in not-entirely-predictable ways, and, again, you have to take a lot of frames to ensure getting the best angle, or the right foreground-to-background juxtaposition.

In any case, I have a lot of images to sort and process. One thing I really enjoyed on this trip was photographing the tremendous variety of ice formations. I’ve now photographed icebergs on two trips to Antarctica and one trip to Greenland, and have been amazed at how natural processes can sculpt ice into an endless variety of shapes and patterns.

Every iceberg is gradually melting. As it melts, a piece might break off, which upsets the balance, and can cause the iceberg to flip upside down, or tilt at a new angle. When the previously-underwater side of the iceberg gets exposed you often find beautifully-sculpted designs where the water has eroded the ice into flutes, fingers, or scallops. Or you might see an ice arch, probably started by a meltwater tunnel in the glacier the iceberg originated from, then further eroded by wind, rain, and seawater as the iceberg floats across the sea. Every time we cruised through icebergs we seemed to find some new design I’d never seen before.

Antarctica is part of earth, but it really feels like you’re visiting a different planet – an ice planet. Here’s a portfolio of images from our recent trip that shows some of the variety of ice formations we found there.

— Michael Frye

P.S. If you’re interested in joining Justin Black for a private charter aboard the Hans Hansson, he has another trip scheduled for January 2028. And feel free to email me if you have questions about this trip.

Iceberg, arch, and clouds, Antarctica. We found this iceberg right at the beginning of our trip, just as we cruised away from King George Island. Knowing that we probably wouldn’t find many ice arches this beautiful, we asked the ship’s captain (the wonderful Julian McGale) to circle the berg several times to get all the angles.

Ice tower, Antarctica. We made a zodiac cruise into this iceberg-filled channel after spotting it the previous evening – even though none of the ship’s crew had ever been to this channel before. It turned out to be a great spot, with some tremendous icebergs, including this tower.

Ice spire, Antarctica. This is the same tower shown in the previous photo, from a different angle. It’s actually an exposed finger of ice connected underwater to the larger berg behind it.

Ice curves, Antarctica. The pattern of curves toward the bottom caught my eye, but then I noticed the juxtaposition with the curved white line of snow above.

Ice textures, Antarctica. Just some beautifully textured ice, highlighted by sunlight raking across the surface.

Ice columns and reflections, Antarctica. On a zodiac cruise in an icy bay we photographed humpback whales for awhile at close range. Then we turned our attention to the icebergs, and found some beautiful patterns. This iceberg was next to the one at the top of this post.

Ice mushroom, Antarctica. This formation had an almost-perfect mushroom shape. You never know what you’ll find.

Sculptured ice, Antarctica. Although certain spots are well-known for collecting icebergs (iceberg “graveyards”), winds can cause icebergs to collect in unexpected places, like this area near Palmer Station.

Ice boulder, clouds, and brash ice, Antarctica. We found calm, glassy water while cruising through an icy bay, passing this ice boulder perched on a tabular berg. How did it get there? Probably from an avalanche falling from a steep slope while the ice was still part of a glacier.

Ice boulders and kelp gull, Antarctica. The same ice boulder as in the previous photo, viewed from a different angle on our way out of the bay, with a kelp gull perched on top.

Ice fingers, Antarctica. Another surprising formation – they’re endless.

Ice arch, Antarctica. We viewed this arch on zodiacs from both sides, but I liked this angle, with the arch framing a zigzag formation.

Iceberg with penguins, Antarctica. One of the last icebergs we encountered while sailing back to King George Island. The penguins were on the back side of the berg, so we only spotted them after we had passed it. The captain turned around and circled the berg twice to allow us to capture different angles.

Related Posts: Back in Antarctica; One Day in Antarctica

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Back in Antarctica

Michael Frye — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 11:34:43 +0000

Chinstrap penguins, Antarctica

Claudia and I are back in Antarctica! We’re so happy to be in this amazing place again, and share the experience with our wonderful group of participants, along with the stellar crew aboard the Hans Hansson. And a big thanks to my co-instructor Justin Black, the founder of Visionary Wild, who did such an great job organizing this special trip designed for photographers.

We’ve had some wonderful light, and fantastic encounters with wildlife. Passing through the Gerlache Straight two days ago we saw a huge concentration of humpback whales – probably 50 or so within a few square miles.

And of course we’ve seen lots of penguins. Here are a couple of photographs of chinstrap penguins from our second day.

Like last year, I’m taking lots and lots of photos, so it’ll take me awhile to sort through and process them. But I’ll post more when I can.

— Michael Frye

Chinstrap penguin courtship display, Antarctica

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Happy New Year!

Michael Frye — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:44:42 +0000

Gentoo penguins on an iceberg, Antarctica

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, and lots of beautiful light and wonderful adventures during the coming year.

Claudia and I will be ringing in the New Year at 30,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean while flying to Chile, and then we’ll continue to Antarctica on January 3rd. I can’t wait to get back to the land of ice and penguins! And I can’t think of a better way to start the new year.

— Michael Frye

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