Voyage of the Vasiliy Golovnin Ep.4

Episode 4. January 21 2006.
9th day en route to Casey Station, across the Southern Ocean.
The sea calmed more and more, and sleet began to fall, until an eerie stillness settled upon the ocean – and finally upon the horizon – the First Iceberg. A truly thrilling moment.
After nine days at sea it seemed so sudden – we were in ‘the pack’ – sea ice that thickened and eventually extended to the horizon, as the stillness and blueness enveloped all. It’s hard to describe the feeling of it – experienced hands found the enthusiasm of first-timers (like me) amusing – I guess there’s nothing quite like your first time.
Nevertheless, I’ll never forget those irrepressibly impressive first days amidst the pack ice, with huge icebergs looming, like distant cathedrals and graeco-roman temples, as if from some other un-human architectural dimension; the sudden appearance of life: penguins, a leopard seal – a world that was entirely new to me, a kind of pristine and alien beauty, both fragile and overwhelming. I felt like an intruder, being given a glimpse of something that humans didn’t own or quite deserve as we left a wake through the barrier between the human world and this one, which seemed infinitely mysterious and wonderful and bloody cold.
Little did I know the next day was to be even more visually amazing – it was an aesthetic voyage as well.
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A videoblog of the Voyage of the Vasiliy Golovnin on a continental resupply of the three main Australian Bases, Casey, Davis & Mawson in 2006.
I was fortunate to receive the Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship in that year, where I shot a stereoscopic 3D movie and a number of high-definition panoramas. It was a great adventure, fulfilling a life-long dream to experience the frozen continent at the bottom of the world. The blank spaces on the map.
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The videoblog was shot on my trusty Canon Powershot Pro 1 camera – an 8.3 Megapixel device. It could shoot video at 320x240px @15fps for max 3 minutes; 640x320px for ~ 30 seconds per shot, recording 11Kz mono audio.
Basically, the video was pretty dreadful (as you can probably see) – but it was good enough for blogging with – and I managed to post a few videoblogs from Antarctica via satellite, when I was at the bases. But I shot a lot more than I ever uploaded. This is that other material.
It’s a ‘digitally restored’ version using current software tools, mainly for posterity and also for the friends I made on the voyage – and for anyone else out there who cares to watch. I hope you enjoy it.

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