“I’m home from Antarctica and going through images. Here are some icebergs shot on the trip. What I love most about ice is that each iceberg is unique and each has different texture and shape. It can be dangerous diving because ice is dynamic. If you don’t choose the right iceberg and it’s too tall or has too many overhands, a piece can break off and the iceberg can flip. We try and dive grounded bergs because we know they aren’t moving. One had really interesting arches and undercuts. We don’t go into those either because of stability. We saw interesting life on the bottom and some krill and other critters under the ice. All of the divers in these shots make it look easy when in fact the gear is bulky and the water is ice cold. It’s a pretty epic adventure though!”
Becky Kagan Schott
“Check out all of the stones embedded into the iceberg from the time it was a glacier. Those are some pretty old rocks! Tell me thats not a surreal environment! I never really talk about the difficulty and challenges in capturing images like this.It takes days and weeks of travel. Then we cross the Drake Passage in anywhere from 3-30ft seas, set up our heavy gear out in the cold wind & snow. I set up my camera system, charge lights & batteries. We do a test dive when we arrive and hope that all of our gear is performing well in the unforgiving 29-33f degree water. Gear can just break and regulators can free-flow in those temperatures. After that it’s pretty exploratory. We may not know we are diving an iceberg until just before we do it if conditions are right. My dive buddies and models have to be really dialed in. We never know what kinds of underwater conditions well have. We choose the “right iceberg” and then gear up into our heavy tanks, weight harnesses, thick and bulky drysuits. We can barely bend over to put our fins on and don our gloves. We splash into the water and hope there are no leaks. Then we descend and only have 25-30 minutes to capture images. Sometimes we coordinate shots and other times we just evaluate the environment on the spot.. In the moment I’m cold, my mind is racing and looking for the next shot. The heavy gear and bulkiness makes moving hard but in the end it’s all worth it to document an environment rarely seen by human eyes. You can’t dive the same iceberg twice. We clean and fix gear, wash cameras in the showers and are always ready for the next shot because time is limited and if I don’t get it i’ll wait another year before returning.”
Beck Kagan Schott
