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Gallery: seeing Svalbard in black and white (part two)

September 11, 2025 / 39 Comments

I am conscious of the immense solitude around me. There is nothing that is like me, no creature in whose aspect I might retain a consciousness of my own self, I feel that the limits of my being are being lost in this all-too-powerful nature, and for the first time I have a sense of the divine gift of companionship.

Christiane Ritter, A Woman in the Polar Night

Christiane Ritter spent a winter in the harshest conditions that Svalbard can offer. Living in a tiny hut with her husband and another trapper, but sometimes left alone there for many days. Constant darkness, cut off from the world by snow and ice; her Arctic was not my Arctic. In the comfort of a modern ship, surrounded by other travellers and by a professional team there to keep us both safe and informed, I could grasp only a small sense of what she must have felt here. But a small sense I did get, and I think editing some of my photos in black and white has helped to emphasise what sense of bleakness I did find in this stunning environment.

I previously shared some monochrome edits of photos taken on the first six days of our Svalbard expedition cruise. At the time I promised a further post covering the second half of the trip; this is it.

As always, these photos were originally shot in colour and converted using Nik Silver Efex Pro. My feature image was taken at Vinkelvika, our landing site in Mühlbacherbreen on day ten of our expedition. The remainder below are presented in chronological order. I’m sharing these photos for this week’s theme-free Monochrome Madness.

Day eight

Ice formation at Kræmerpynten, Kvitøya, the easternmost island in the Svalbard archipelago

Day eight

Arctic tern in flight at Kræmerpynten, Kvitøya Island

Day nine

Walrus on the island of Edgeoya

Day nine

Cliffs in the mist, Edgeoya Island

Day ten

Low cloud over Burgerbukta

Day ten

Paierbreen, Burgerbukta

Day ten

Ice formations, Burgerbukta

Day ten

Reindeer vertebra, Vinkelvika

Day ten

Mühlbacherbreen, Vinkelvika

(the small vertical line against the ice, bottom right, is a member of our expedition team, which should give you a sense of the scale of this two kilometre wide glacier)

Day eleven

Mountains above Camp Millar, Varsolbukta, Bellsund

Day eleven

Mountains above Camp Millar, Varsolbukta, Bellsund

Day eleven

Old mining hut, Camp Millar, Varsolbukta, Bellsund

Day eleven

Kittiwakes on a rock, Midterhuken, Bellsund

I visited Svalbard in August 2025

39 Comments

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