Wildlife photographer Jeffrey Van Daele recounts his experience as a photography tour guide on a trip to Antarctica
Belgium-based image maker Jeffrey Van Daele is a wildlife photographer with a strong documentarian leaning. “I mainly make pictures of animals, but I’m trying to go further than that and focus more on conservation,” he explains.
“That means also getting the not-so-beautiful images of wildlife. Of course, for my job as a tour guide, I have to make classic pictures – nice subjects with creative techniques and pretty backgrounds. But in my spare time, I mostly try to make pictures of animals in distress or being rehabilitated to give a broader message about what’s going on.”
In November 2024, Jeffrey embarked on a voyage to Antarctica aboard a chartered ship of 100 Dutch-speaking birdwatchers, photography enthusiasts and tourists. Jeffrey was among five photography tour guides, who would be leading excursions from the ship to the shores of each destination.
“Starting in Argentina, we first took the ship to the Falklands,” recalls Jeffrey. “From there, we went to South Georgia, from South Georgia to Antarctica and then back to Ushuaia. That’s a long trip – normally people just go to Antarctica and come back. But we wanted to do South Georgia because that’s where you have the enormous penguin colonies. It’s rather unique to see.”
Exploring South Georgia
“There were about 200,000 king penguins on South Georgia,” Jeffrey explains. “Because the expedition ship was resting about 100 metres from shore, we had to take a Zodiac to go ashore. If there’s too much wind, it’s impossible – so a landing is never a sure thing.”
Jeffrey’s group got lucky with the conditions and went ashore multiple times during their stay off South Georgia. “The ship that came after us never did the landing – the ocean was too rough,” he notes. “But we were able to.”
This was far from the last challenge facing the group, though. “Because there was bird flu last year – and also a bit this year – we couldn’t lay down on the ground. We couldn’t sit down. We couldn’t put our backpacks on the ground. Only our shoes were permitted to touch the floor,” Jeffrey describes. “At the end we needed a biosecurity check – every groove in your shoe has to be cleaned.”
From a photography perspective, this affected the way the group could work. “Getting kit out of your backpack was a real hassle; you had to ask for help,” explains Jeffrey. “I like to lay down on the ground a lot to get a low vantage point, but there you had to just crouch, put your camera low to the ground and look at the LCD screen. For some people that’s not so easy. But photography won’t be easy every time.”
It was a location unlike any other, offering opportunities for totally unique images. “South Georgia was incredible,” Jeffrey enthuses. “You have hundreds of thousands of penguins constantly calling. They come up to you because you’re strange and they want to know what you are, but you have to keep a distance of five metres so we were backing up all the time. It’s amazing to be between those penguins and all the elephant seals. And it’s never silent. There’s so much animal noise, it’s overwhelming.”
Zooming out
In such a setting, it can be hard to focus on individual compositions – which is why Jeffrey recommends taking in as much of the scene as possible.
“You have the standard photos, compositions you suggest to people on the tour; close-up portraits of the animals and that kind of thing. For my wildlife photography, though, I mostly use a wider lens. If I’m in Antarctica, I don’t want to just make a portrait of a penguin – I want to get the environment with it.
“I can do a portrait of a penguin in a wildlife park in Belgium,” he points out. “Here, I wanted the background. A lot of people tried to hide the droppings – the guano on the floor – because that’s ugly. But that’s the life these penguins have, so you should make a picture of that.
“I want more of a documentary style, not just images you could make anywhere. You have to show people: this is South Georgia; this is Antarctica.”
The change in atmosphere between these two locations was stark, Jeffrey notes. “When we got to Antarctica, it was very early spring, so the ice was melting,” he describes. “We had to look for places to go ashore, and there were small dots of penguin colonies – maybe 30 or 50 birds. They were spread around the white, snowy landscape and it was very minimalistic and peaceful – a completely different environment.”
A minimalist approach
For one Antarctic landing, Jeffrey opted to leave his FUJIFILM X-H2S, X-T5 and collection of X Series lenses on the ship in order to focus his creativity. “I like to challenge myself. Everyone was taking out 500mm or 600mm lenses, so on one trip I decided to just bring my FUJIFILM X100VI. I thought, let’s just take it, go ashore and see what I can do.
“It’s easy with a big telephoto lens – if you have problems with your composition, you can just zoom in and your problem is gone; you have another composition,” he points out.
More than simply challenging himself, this experiment ended up being one of Jeffrey’s trip highlights. “It’s a moment I’ll never forget,” he enthuses. “I didn’t have all these kilograms on my back so I could just walk around and enjoy everything.
“You can create beautiful pictures with a small camera as well – and this was towards the end of the trip, so people didn’t need as much help with their photography. I could simply wander and do my own thing. It was the most peaceful walk I did in Antarctica.”
Another high point was spotting a completely black king penguin. “That’s very rare, one in 250,000,” notes Jeffrey. “It’s a normal king penguin, but with melanism, so it has a pigment condition that makes it completely black.
“In 2016, my colleague went to Antarctica and saw a yellow penguin – another pigment condition. Those photos went on the news all over the world; it was even more special than the black penguin. In three years, I’ll be guiding another tour to Antarctica and we hope to see a red penguin – then we’ll have the Belgian flag!”
Building a unique style
For Jeffrey, Fujifilm’s colour science is of huge benefit to his creative process. “The Film Simulations are incredible,” he remarks. “I look at the photo and think, ‘OK, if I would have done that analogue, which film would I have used?’ Then I just take that film and programme it into my camera. I do a lot of post-processing in black & white, but for colour it’s zero. Really, the simulations are spot on.”
Despite this, Jeffrey exclusively frames up his photos using a monochrome preview. “I always work in black & white – even if I want the colour image, I use the ACROS Film Simulation with the red filter for the preview,” he explains. “That’s because I like the dark skies. I can see more shapes and lines; I can see the contrast better.”
When it comes to editing his black & white images, Jeffrey will often use ACROS+R as a starting point. “I’ll keep the Film Simulation and then do dodging and burning,” he explains. “I can work from half an hour to one hour on each image. They’re the same techniques I’d use in the dark room, in the times of analogue.”
Jeffrey would always encourage his tour groups to fully embrace the unique setting and make it as much a part of their photos as possible. “Look at the environment and put your subject within it,” he states. “Before every landing, we gave a talk on photography, and would say to people: ‘Yes, bring a long lens, but put it to the side. Please take a wide lens and use that.’
“On all my trips, that’s the most difficult thing to convince people. They always want to get as close as possible. I understand they have to get those images, but once they have them – I mean, you can make 1000 close-ups, but if it’s the same kind of penguin, the photos will look the same.
“Zooming out is difficult. You have to look at more – the lines have to match; you have to have balance in your picture. It’s more difficult, and that’s why people stick to their long lenses – they can zoom all their problems away.”
There’s no quick route to finding these environmental compositions consistently, but the first step is committing to working on it, notes Jeffrey. “That’s why I show my images to people. Then they are convinced, but on their own they’re not going to try it. You have to practise.”
