Eml, I love your Svalbard shots, it's a couple of stone throws from my house, (well, almost) ANd I had a friend who lived there, but I never got around to take the trip, so I live through your pictures, just lovely stuff! I love that you squeez out so much color from a very white and bright place.
Hi Viggo, appreciate the comments, Thank You, it's an interesting place, Longyearbyen is a tiny town, around 2k people, but once you get into the Northern Islands it's quite Beautiful, and as it's so difficult to get to hopefully it will stay this way for a long time. I enjoy the colours in the Arctic & Antarctic, the Greys, whites & occasional Blue, reminds me of places like Namibia, just different, well, a lot different. But the feeling is the same, silence, stark & quite Beautiful. The Bears for me were the definite Highlight, we were fortunate to see so many, some trips report seeing only 2 or 3 over the 10 days, and when you get them on the Ice, that's about as good as it gets.
We had one bear that gave a bit of a show, the one in previous Images on top of the small Ice Berg, she came out from behind the Ice, rolled around, shook her self off, climbed up to the highest point of the Berg, tried to work out how to get onboard, gave up, went slowly down to water & slipped in then swam off, 40 minutes of absolute wonder, fortunately I remembered to keep pushing the shutter button, I'll certainly be going again, planning on 2016 and working to Charter the Stockholm for a back to back trip (20 days), then spend more time on the Ice in the North at around 82 degrees, with only 6 Cabins to fill it should be workable.
Like the Duck Images as well, Love this Lens, Sharp as a Razor.