2019 Round Up [ The Return ]

I know, I know. I’m spoiling all three of you who have clicked on the facebook/twitter/instagram link to this with my incredible rate of posting. “Take it easy Olly”, everyone keeps saying, fear in their eyes. I’m inundated with emails titled “SLOW DOWN!??!?1!!”, children are crying, flocks of birds are leaving the country, families are being torn apart by the sheer outpouring of creativity, and yet here I am again, unflinchingly tapping away, not a flicker of an eye at the lives lost, with my sub-annual blog post.

The intention is always there to update this, and god knows I have a big bag of excuses as to why I never keep on top of these kinds of things, but the long and short of it is just priority. I’m very lucky to be at a super exciting and busy point in my career, and as much as I love just ‘making stuff’, such as these kinds of posts, there’s just a lot more to be getting on with at the moment.

In case you’ve all forgotten what I look like, here’s a gratuitous selfie. Managed to nail this extra-cold looking pic on a particularly glorious sunny day on the ice, but damn does it make me look like I know what I’m doing (I don’t) in all my social media photos. This is what I look like permanently now though, hood up, hat on.

So, what has changed in a year? Well, I’m currently sat typing this up at McMurdo Station in Antarctica which is pretty wild. It’s my last shoot this ‘contracted’ year for a new Wildlife series called “Frozen Planet II”, a follow up to the successful 2011 BBC series, and the last part II to be made of the famous ‘Planet’ trilogy (Planet Earth, Blue Planet & Frozen Planet). Interestingly, it’s also the shortest time elapsed between the original and ‘Part II’ of these programmes, so it’s going to be incredibly valuable to draw comparisons over ten years in the fastest changing environments on the planet. More specifically, the areas most visibly affected by human driven climate degradation.

Photographer & Dive Safety Justin Hofman on lookout earlier this year. (Super super nice guy, and shot the incredible Seahorse holding a cotton bud photo.)

Now, as per various contractual agreements, and of course my own belief in the ‘less is more’ ethos, I can’t and won’t tell you in any detail what I’ve been up to this year. And, both excitingly (for me) and disappointingly (for anyone interested in what I’m up to) I’ve just signed up for a second year of being the ‘In House’ Cameraman on the series, to see it through to near the end of production. So, that means at least another year of keeping my lips sealed on a regular basis, and only in Autumn 2021 (I’ve made enough American friends this year that one of you might be reading this - that means ‘Fall’ 2021) will I be able to talk freely about the things I’ve been up to when the programme airs.

As a quick sidestep, there is ONE BIG THING that I can talk about now though which is super super exciting, and that is the broadcast of “Seven Worlds, One Planet” on the BBC, which I was lucky enough to work on a few sequences of. (For non-film people, we call each story a ‘sequence’). I’m going to save that for a separate post, or few posts, however as it’s the biggest thing I’ve achieved in my career so far, so I’d like to give it a little focused space of it’s own. I shot the Albatross sequence with John Aitchison, Erin Ranney & Abi Lees, Fireflies with Alastair MacEwen & Sarah Whalley, and Polar Bears hunting Beluga Whales with John Shier, Bertie Gregory & Grant Baldwin. All the most amazing people to share the wild corners of the planet with.

A Beautiful Grey-Headed Albatross Chick, one of the Sequences I shot with the amazing John, Erin & Abi. EPIC crew. VS for life.

Suffice to say, it’s pretty mind blowing to be watching the TV with Sir David Attenborough narrating over your footage, and then to see the aftermath of the country gently falling apart watching the Albatross struggle we documented, I can promise you it was a hundred times more heartbreaking filming it and not being able to do anything.

I think the real victory here is that my stuff made it onto gogglebox though. Or, wait, is that a catastrophic social disaster?

Back to my current “Frozen Planet II” work anyway, and what I think I can write about briefly are a few facts and figures, intertwined with a loose narrative of my travels. To be fair, this is as much for my own consolidation whilst I have the perspicaciousness to figure it all out for future recollection, but maybe you’ll get something out of it too. This is all info that I’ve seen posted on social media from people more senior than I in the production, so I’m sure i’m pretty safe with this. There are a few select and purposely vague photos too…

The phrase “GET TO DA CHOPPA” has been thoroughly overused this year. [ And yes, we offset all our carbon emissions, and yes, we only ever take heli flights when it’s absolutely necessary. ]

I first kicked off the year in March (immediately after my Albatross shoot), to spend around a month on an ice-breaking boat in the Arctic, working primarily as the drone operator (and let me tell you that flying a drone from a 150ft boat in 8m of swell is NOT FUN). On the way back, my producer was kind enough to let me stop off in Iceland to drop in on my wonderful friends Andrew & Sophia who emigrated out there a few months previously. So, a few super lovely days exploring their new home Reykjavik, and getting some mountain time in which was epic. I also jumped in at the deepest of deep ends and went to my first ever Crossfit ‘WOD’ at Crossfit Reykjavik then. Scary scary, but I’m alive, and still hooked on it now to keep my fitness for shoots up. I’m forever now trying to find time to get back over there for more than a couple of days too. Important little aside here: Andrew is an INCREDIBLE Musician, go check out his Patreon here and give him some support, and please please please hit up Sophia if you need any photography/design work doing. They’re a ridiculously talented creative powerhouse of a couple, to the point it almost makes you sick, as well as being just the nicest humans ever. Leave something for the rest of us please. X)

Reykjavik looking moody from the beautiful Mt. Esja. Definitely not jealous you have this on your doorstep now guys. Definitely. Not.

Following that lovely excursion came a brief trip to a very beautiful lodge in remote Scandinavia, shooting lots of timelapses, and figuring out some new technology/filming techniques we’re using for the series too. Then off to somewhere else in Scandinavia for a rather epic camping trip, but heartbreakingly witnessing first hand an undeniable human-triggered warming event (n.b. - not what we were filming, just happened to be there at the same time). The rest of the summer was seen out in northern Canada (and the funniest thing I’ve ever witnessed on a wildlife shoot - so far- happened then as well. Don’t piss around with bear spray, kids). A brief bit of R&R at home, and then it was off to something culturally very very new in Russia, where we spent three weeks travelling to our location, making friends with locals, and thinking way too much about Chernobyl as we ended up camped for a fortnight in a remote soviet era Nuclear town. Gulp.

Russia, being maximum Russian, and also astoundingly beautiful (once you leave the towns…).

Another brief stint in the high Arctic in Canada, reaching a new record temperature low whilst working outside for me at just below a brisk -50c, and finally now, I’m here, at the infamous McMurdo. I saw Christmas and the New Year through down here which was quite an experience, and we have a couple more weeks filming before we attempt our return journey back up through New Zealand, and then home briefly before I head back off to the cold end of things in Russia.

Lots and lots and lots of time on this so far this year, becoming a very key part of our filming tool kit

I have learned a truly vast amount this year, and will try and summarise a little, though there is just a huge amount I’m still trying to process, let alone communicate. Having gone to some seriously remote places, the top and the bottom of the globe and quite a few bits in between this year, the planet is so apparently such a terrifyingly tiny place. The indelible human mark on it is huge, and whilst I had a pretty involved understanding for the damage we do to this spinning ball of dirt & water before getting stuck into this series, the real context of it is overwhelming and heartbreaking. As I found a sweet sticker saying recently, (which ironically, I immediately bought), “Consume Less, Appreciate More”. Ask yourself if you really need that thing, get rid of as much ‘single use’ stuff in your life as you can manage, live uncomfortably (it’s good for you in so many ways, i promise), and buy something quality once, not crappy ten times.

What I really want to be able to do with the incredibly fortunate position I’m in as a storyteller of the natural world, is to demonstrate the beauty, wonder & connection I find in everything wild beyond humanity. But so often now, all that is left to tell is something sad, something dying, or I’m just there to make as good and honest a record of something as possible, like the albatross that might well be gone soon, and it really sucks.

Thermos of boiling water in about -30c, had to be done. For Science reasons, probably.

Anyway, on that slightly sombre note, that’s me over for a little bit, I have actually started drafting up the next bits though, now I have a bit of a backlog of exciting stuff to chat about, so let’s hope it’s not another year before you hear from me again! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas & New Year, happy 2020, make it an amazing one.

Olly X