Joseph Meehan, Expedition and Laboratory Photographer

Joseph Meehan has been a professional photographer, writer and teacher for over 30 years and was formally the Senior Technical and New Products Editor of Photo District News. He has also written over 500 articles and columns on photography and photographic techniques which have appeared in such magazines as Popular Photography, Photographic Magazine, Outdoor Photography, View Camera Magazine, and Camera and Darkroom. Meehan also served as a contributing editor with the British Journal of Photography and the annual The BJP Yearbook and is the former editor of the Photography Yearbook published in Great Britain since 1935.

He has also written over 500 articles and columns and 26 books on photography and photographic techniques: Panoramic Photography (Amphoto); The Photographer's Guide to Using Filters (Amphoto); Copying and Duplicating: Photographic and Digital Imaging Techniques (Kodak) and The Art of Close-up Photography (Fountain Press). He also presents seminars and workshop programs at major conventions such as Photo Expo East/West, PhotoFusion, DIMA/PMA, Seybold, and MacWorld.

Photographing in the Arctic: Photographers face three main problems when using modern film and digital camera equipment under the extreme cold of Arctic conditions: (1) failure of battery power, (2) frozen condensation if equipment is moved from warm to cold areas and (3) finding ways of operating the equipment while keeping one’s hands from freezing.

In general, modern cameras and lenses function well under sub-freezing temperatures. But, to prevent any condensation from forming and then freezing, especially on lens surfaces, the equipment was never allowed to “warm-up”. Cameras and lenses were stored in camera bags right next to the wall of our tent, where it was always cold, while batteries were taken out and kept in pockets and pouches next to one’s body along with spare batteries. Dry silk photo cloths were used exclusively to keep lens surfaces clean. A pair of common thin cotton work gloves with rubber dots across the palm and fingers were used when operating the cameras. Otherwise, heavier gloves and wind-proof mittens were worn when carrying equipment and performing general camp tasks. Changing batteries, film and digital storage cards, and shooting video, however, required taking off gloves.

Capturing Arctic Light: Photographing the typical “white on white” landscapes encountered at the edge of the frozen ocean (flow edge) between two snow covered islands was analogous to exposing for a white egg against white seamless paper. Correct exposure was critical to place the delicate highlights properly within the latitude of the film or the camera's digital clip. An incident meter reading was the safest way to get this exposure but in quickly developing situations, the camera’s automatic metering system had to be used. Camera meters are, however, optimized for scenes with an average range of reflected values between highlight and shadow areas. Thus, the meter will set the exposure to render the scene as if it were reading a middle gray card. If not compensated for, all of the Arctic’s white on white landscapes would come out as under exposed middle gray rather than white. Thus, when using the camera’s meter, I set the “exposure compensation” settings to tell the meter that there was about 1.5 - 2.5 stops less light (depending on the situation) then its meter was indicating. This correctly rendered white snow highlight areas. The diversity of the landscape settings surrounding the camp and the abundance of bird life (as well as polar bears) frequently called for the use of telephoto lenses to isolate important features. Accordingly, the majority of the most impressive landscape shots of Baffin and Bylot Islands were taken with lenses between 300mm and 500mm using 35mm film and digital SLRs. Compositions to show the expanse of the setting were done with a 17-35mm zoom while scientific images were shot with a 105 macro and a 24-85 zoom. Commonly used filters were a Polarizer for blue skies and a -2 stop graduated neutral density filter to control the extreme contrast. Finally, the single most effective means of refining the final image came when processing RAW digital camera file images. The ability to lower contrast, control shadow density and correct for exposure effectively up to +/- 1.5 stops offered by RAW processing was a much-appreciated advantage. In the end, about 80% of all shots were taken with digital SLRs versus film SKRs because of the superior control offered by these cameras.