On January 14th on my recent expedition to Antarctica with EYOS Expeditions, we sailed past Iceberg A23a, currently the largest iceberg on the planet. The enormous tabular iceberg is approximately 40 nautical miles, up to 400 metres thick and weighs just short of a trillion tonnes. Expedition leader Ian Strachan and I used a drone to photograph the iceberg, capturing images of man dramatic archways and caves that were appearing due to wave action and warmer waters as the berg drifts north. The images quickly got the attention of the BBC, who ran a story that evening with our footage and it is shared here below, along with a collection of our raw footage.
In late August 2022, after completing a short photography assignment in Iceland, I took the opportunity to ride my bike across the vast and remote interior. This unsupported crossing took me eight days and was one incredible adventure!
Richard Sidey bikepacking across Iceland’s vast interior.
A merge of two photos taken nearly a century apart on Elephant Island, Antarctica by expedition photographers Frank Hurley and Richard Sidey.
My Shackleton Moment.
With the wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance having being found last week after 107 years on the floor of the Weddell Sea, I was inspired to revisit photos of an impromptu call at Elephant Island ten years ago whilst sailing by.
A tiny and exposed peninsula, it’s not often possible to land safety due to swell, ice and wind. However on this day conditions were favourable and we made a quick stop to see where Shackleton and his men had set up camp under their lifeboats before Shackleton, Worsley and four crew courageously and famously sailed 800 miles in the lifeboat ‘James Caird’ to South Georgia to seeking rescue.
I took this photo of our expedition leader Robin West holding the Zodiac here whilst on shore, and it was only after returning to our ship that I realised I had been standing in the exact same spot (with a pretty similar focal length) where Shackleton’s expedition photographer Frank Hurley took the famous image (overlayed) of the launching of the James Caird on April 24, 1916.
So quite a special moment! Two images nearly a century apart fitting perfectly together. If you haven’t read Shackleton’s story yet, it’s well worth the read.
After 17-months on the mountain film festival circuit, Richard’s award-winning poetic short film on the extreme sport of wingsuit BASE is now free to enjoy on YouTube.
About Spellbound
Wingsuit BASE jumping is often presented as a thrill seeking adrenaline rush. Spellbound takes us deeper into the more contemplative aspects of jumping, as David Walden and friends venture into the mountains around his home in New Zealand.Beautiful scenery and hypnotic cinematography eject us from our daily lives into a world of air, earth and flight.
After a year on the global adventure film festival circuit, the black-and white-poetic short film on the extreme sport of wingsuit B.A.S.E. continues to pick up awards.
Aliscia Young and Richard Sidey are proud to contribute their images in the beautiful new book Wai Pasifika, by renowned environmental writer David Young. The book features over 75 of their images, including several full page spreads.
Science can be as wondrous as the explanations that come out of earth-rooted cultures. Polynesians, like the inhabitants of Oceania generally, have always lived in a state of heightened awareness of the profundity and subtlety of nature’s moods and interrelationships. Theirs was a holistic view of the world and their place in it. In this beautifully written and stunningly illustrated book, David Young focuses on the increasingly endangered resource of freshwater, and what so-called developed societies can learn from the indigenous voices of the Pacific.
Wai Pasifika is available at all good book stores.
IN THE THEATRE OF THE GOGS IS AN ODE TO OUTDOOR PHOTOGRAPHY. THE FILM BRINGS TOGETHER AN ADVENTURE FILM-MAKER, RICHARD SIDEY, AND A LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHER, CHRISTOPHER DAVID THOMPSON, TO DOCUMENT WHAT IT TAKES TO CAPTURE IMAGES OF THE REMOTE AND WILD PLACES OF AOTEAROA.
The making of this documentary, filmed in and around Rakiura / Stewart Island, mostly involved frozen fingers, slogging up massive hills, wind, and outrageous beauty. Here, Richard revisits Christopher’s dialogue from the film to share the process, moment by moment, place by place, line by line.
The as-yet unanswered questions; What have we gotten ourselves into? Are we ready for this? Can we do this? What have we forgotten, what have we left behind? Oh man, what have we gotten ourselves into?
A rainbow flickers intermittently through the squalls that tear up the surface. Our sea kayaks, lashed to the deck with a multitude of weathered straps, ropes and granny knots, levitate for a full three seconds when a gust reaches its crescendo. We shout at each other, but our voices wash overboard and depart with the wind. This is wild in every sense of the word, and in a few minutes we’re to be dispatched into the thick of it.
“E.O.F.T. is celebrating 20 years of outdoor sport and adventure films, bringing a new generation of adventurers to the big screen. This year’s program takes you to the Amazon, on a bike tour around the world, and to the icy heights of the Swiss Alps. Starting in October, the European Outdoor Film Tour will once again deliver what we’ve all been missing—real adventures, inspiring stories, and travel, the ultimate freedom.”
Spellbound is a poetic take on the extreme sport of Wingsuit BASE, filmed around Wanaka, New Zealand with highly skilled athletes and narrated by wingsuit pilot David Walden. The film has won numerous awards at mountain film festivals around the world and has been described as ‘a film that will make your hands sweat.’
