Greenland is the world's largest island and an autonomous Danish dependent territory with limited self-government and its own parliament. The massive island lies between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Much of its land surface is covered in ice. Most of its small population lives along the ice-free, fjord-lined coast, particularly in the southwest. Its northerly position, largely above the Arctic Circle, results in natural phenomena such as summer’s midnight sun and winter’s Northern Lights.

How do you photograph polar bears successfully? The bright white tones of the arctic present challenges, especially this time of year when the sun never sets. Luckily for us, the weather forecast is for party cloudy skies with daily average temperatures at, or just below, freezing – these are perfect conditions as far as I’m concerned.

What a killer of a day here in Iceland. The sun broke for us at Aldeyjarfoss, then a fast run over to Godafoss, then a quick pizza stop and it was off the photograph the Northern Lights.What started off as a small show, soon turned into a huge display of multicolored lights dancing across the sky in wave-like forms. I have photographed the lights before but never have I been faced with having to increase my shutter speed to stop the action.

I arrived long before sunrise and just watched the immense motion underway. Soon I was in awe of the power of nature and quickly concluded that wanted to create an image that displayed motion, power, fire, and uncertainty. 

With the exception of Lake Manyara’s tree-climbing lions, these big cats don’t usually attempt to climb trees without low hanging and/or easily navigable branches. Their sheer weight, and lack of specific shoulder muscles, makes serious tree climbing more difficult for lions than other big cats, such as leopards. 

Longyearbyen is a unique city, to say the least. The city is built on stilts to keep the buildings above the permafrost layers and it's so far north, it's home to the world’s northernmost commercial airport, ATM, post office, museum, and university.After three days of travel, I have finally arrived at Longyearbyen where I will overnight. They call it the land of the midnight sun; it’s blazingly bright at 0100, I know I will definitely be sleeping on the plane at the end of the trip. 

We went big on our last full day on the Namiri Plains… and by big, I mean BIG cats! It was all about lions and cheetahs today; we saw a lot. The lion photographed here is named Ziggy, like Ziggy Marley, because of his dreadlocks. The tall grasses can wreak havoc on a lion’s mane – their hair gets entwined on the grasses causing massive tangles and mats, which eventually become dreadlocks. Without a comb (or leave-in-conditioner) in sight, the dreadlocks keep growing – it’s almost impossible to stay well groomed for a lion with a sizable mane like Ziggy’s.