Jun 10 2026 | By: Zuckerman Photography
This is a baby harp seal I photographed in the Magdalen Islands off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. It was minus 45 degrees. I was dropped onto the pack ice from a helicopter dressed in an orange jump suit in case I fell through the ice. It would be easier to find me. I was told to stay away from dark ice, which is thin ice. I shot this in the 90’s with a medium format film camera, the Mamiya RZ 67. The 220 Fujichrome Provia 100 film I was using had a paper backing, and at the end of the roll I’d lick the adhesive to seal it tight. In the extreme cold, though, the adhesive didn’t work. So, I had to use rubber bands to keep the film from unraveling. I used a hand held exposure meter, the Sekonic L-358, on incident mode to determine the exposures in this white environment. My setting were unrecorded, but based on how I used to shoot they were probably 1/400, f/8, and 100 ISO.
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