Arctic Adventures - Uzair Kharawala

Uzair Kharawala is certainly a glutton for punishment but he always tortures cameras as well! First it was the London Eye with the D3, then the Swiss Alps with the D3x. Now he shares his experience of shooting a wedding at the world-famous Ice Hotel, at temperatures as low as -29°C and shooting the Northern Lights at ISO of 12,800 with the Nikon D3S.

One of the most exciting and challenging shoots I’ve ever done was during my trip to Lapland, just short of the Arctic Circle, in Sweden. The trip came about when I was booked to photograph a wedding at the world famous Ice Hotel in Sweden. This was roughly the same time as the Nikon D3S was launched and so it was the perfect opportunity to test the camera for its high ISO capabilities in such low light and extreme conditions.

Ceremony I was specially excited about the use of the video on the DSLR. Initially, I wasn’t too keen about this video capability when they were first introduced, however, I now love it and am starting to enjoy it more and more. Prior to my visit to Sweden, I did photograph a wedding here in the UK with the D3S and the image quality at ISO 10,000 and 12,800 was stunning – so I wasn’t too concerned about the low light situation over there. Bride and groom posing underneath chandelier

The trip involved photographing a pre-wedding shoot, the wedding itself, a dog sledding tour on a frozen river and through the wilderness around Jukkasjarvi and a four-hour Northern Light tour on snow-mobiles and staying in the 'cold accommodation' for one night at the Ice Hotel. Yes I did sleep in a cold room at The Ice Hotel (at -5°C) and I am still here to tell the story. In fact, you get a diploma if you wake up alive in the morning! It was a fairly packed schedule within a four-day trip

The wedding took place in the Ice Chapel and was a traditional Swedish ceremony which took 30 minutes or so. The warmest temperature inside the chapel and the Ice Hotel is no greater than -5°C, which is considerably warmer than the temperature outside. The coldest I experienced during this trip was -29°C. The wedding party then headed off to the Ice Bar for some drinks, then the family group shots, and then, after the guests have headed off to the ‘warm bar’, the shots of the couple and the wedding breakfast. The whole wedding took no longer than about two hours. Unlike a traditional wedding of say eight hours there is even more pressure on being organised and getting the shots which I’d been paid for.

My biggest concern was the batteries in the camera but I did not need to change the batteries once during any shoot we went out for. They pretty much lasted all day long.

Photographing inside the Ice Hotel was challenging. The easy way would have been to put the flash on the hot shoe and fire away all day long. But that’s not what I did.*

I was shooting on average around 3200–5000 ISO inside the Ice Hotel with a few fast prime lenses, the 85mm f/1.4, 35mm f/2 and the 50mm f/1.4. I shot the ceremony with available light only, even though I had permission to use the flash. Using flash would have ‘killed’ the whole ambience of the beautiful and unique setting. So don’t be scared of shooting at high ISO if your camera body allows you to.

I do use the flash a lot but not on the hot-shoe of the camera. Flash is one of the most
creative pieces of kit you have in your camera bag. Use it correctly and you’ll get some
amazing results. I place it on a light-stand and either use an umbrella or a Lastolite
Ezybox. These are easy to carry and go with me everywhere. I had the new 80x80cm
Ezybox which I used for the group shots with the SB900 flash-gun. Balancing the
ambient light with flash is the key to getting really good shots."

Coming back to the group shots, my lighting kit is extremely portable, quick to set up, and easy to use. I’m pretty much up and running in under two minutes. This is handy in such a cold place where you don’t want the guests hanging around and getting cold while you take your time setting up the lighting gear.

After the group shots, I spent about 10–15 minutes with the couple and we went around the hotel and took their shots. Then we went to the ‘warm bar’ and shortly afterwards the wedding breakfast and the day was over. I was pretty exhausted by the hectic activity and the cold conditions but it was worth every penny! I thoroughly enjoyed the wedding and now rank it amongst my favourites.

bride and groom

Our Northern Lights tour was arranged on a bitterly cold evening. But what, exactly, are the Northern Lights? The Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis, appear in a clear night sky as swirling rivers of greenish-blue light. They move and dance unpredictably; sometimes barely perceptible, then suddenly growing vivid. In simple terms, the auroras can be explained as an interaction of the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field. The phenomenon occurs when the particles collide with atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere, transforming kinetic energy into visible light. The most intensive auroras occur at a height of about 100km and each can be 10 to 30 km high.

The Northern Lights can be seen virtually every clear night at high latitudes. We had to travel about 45km on the snow-mobiles from the hotel to be able to see them. The experience of driving a snow-mobile through the wilderness was pretty incredible. I was wearing four layers of thermals and fleeces, a jacket and then a snow-suit, three layers of socks with snow boots and I was still freezing!

Setting up and photographing in complete darkness while wearing gloves was not ideal. There is no way the autofocus will work on any camera as it is so dark, the focus has to be set on Manual mode and then you set the exposure by experience. I was able to set the shutter at around only 6–8 seconds (10,000–12,800 ISO) and capture some amazing shots of the lights. I was pretty lucky that I managed to see them first time around.

Speaking about the Nikon D3S, the camera handled perfectly in such extreme conditions. I love the high ISO performance, the 12.1MP is ideal for the kind of work I photograph. The ‘D-Movie’ adds a new dimension of creativity with HD quality. An external microphone can be attached for stereo recording. Using shallow depth of field provides beautiful blur on the background. All in all, an incredible experience of a lifetime with the best DSLR around at the moment.

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