The Last Iceberg

November 25, 2007 5:01 PM

The Last Icebergsuffers, as many photography sites do, from a mildly irritating flash interface; but if you can get over that fact, you'll see some genuinely amazing polar photography of isolated icebergs & ice shelves.
posted by jonson (17 comments total)

Very cool. And scary, at least to me, for some reason. I don't know, the incredibly desolate and inhospitable feel, maybe? It's almost alien, like nature telling us we're not supposed to be there at all.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:51 PM on November 25, 2007

Pretty desolate, and beautiful. Worth going to the antarctic for- even if you run the risk of your cruise ship hitting a 'berg...

(We've seen far worse flash)
posted by marvin at 5:58 PM on November 25, 2007

Fabulous. Thank you.
posted by googly at 6:15 PM on November 25, 2007

Some of those are very striking, thanks.
posted by entropic at 6:22 PM on November 25, 2007

Metafilter: a mildly irritating flash interface

Yeah, it would be funny.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:26 PM on November 25, 2007

Wow, this Flash interface is mildly irritating.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 6:35 PM on November 25, 2007

I have been mildly irritated by this Flash interface and wish to comment.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 6:35 PM on November 25, 2007

I am mildly irritated by the comments about the Flash interface.
posted by parki at 6:36 PM on November 25, 2007

I am in the comments and mildly irritated about photography.
posted by Eekacat at 6:39 PM on November 25, 2007

Would be mildly irritated again A+++

(no polar bears?)
posted by Balisong at 6:45 PM on November 25, 2007

Looking at photos of our planet's ice caps melting to nothing while eating dinner at the computer is every bit as surreal as watching tv news of the Vietnam war's daily dead during dinner in the '60s.
posted by chance at 6:57 PM on November 25, 2007

amazing pictures. I'd love to go there.

I'm not going to do the "fixed that for you" thing, but I think rather than "mildly annoying" I would have used the words "borderline-incomprehensible" to describe that UI.
posted by drjimmy11 at 7:57 PM on November 25, 2007

i really just love it when flash designers try and impose his/her creative vision to a piece.

/* to the flash designer:

the iceberg photos are really f'ing cool, why can't i just see those pictures? why do i need crazily resizing thumbs?

i just want to see the really cool full size images

thx,
the user

hth!
*/
posted by localhuman at 11:16 PM on November 25, 2007

Beautiful/Eerie.

I wonder how this compares to what one would see on an Alaskan cruise (which I would be more likely to do). I hear it's pretty expensive to get to the south pole, less so for the north.
posted by philomathoholic at 11:31 PM on November 25, 2007

philomathoholic-

An Alaska cruise is cheaper by comparison because they're generally not getting nearly as close to the northern pole as an Antarctic cruise does the south. Most cruises to AK spend their time down in the fjords, which are somewhere around 50-55N. King George Island in the Antartic, by contrast, is like 62S or so. (Plus, it's a lot further from the US, too.) If your goal was to get close to one of the poles as cheaply as possible, I suspect North pole may actually be more expensive.

Anyway, the glaciers you see from an AK cruise are spectacular but you don't really get the same sense of desolation and hostility. They're more about watching geology in action; you can see them calving and producing little icebergs, etc.

If you want to experience something more desolate, I think the easiest way is probably to go to Iceland and then go on one of the excursions into the interior (which is a big glacier). You can take snowmobile tours where you basically drive in from a base on the edge 30 or 40 miles and once there, you can kill the engines and it's as close to being on another planet as I can imagine. (photo, and that doesn't really do it justice; in retrospect I should have shot a pano). There are probably similar places in AK, but I don't think you'll find them on the cruise ship itineraries because they'd be further north and inland.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:05 AM on November 26, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wow, thanks for the response Kadin.
posted by philomathoholic at 1:23 AM on November 26, 2007

Magnificent photographs!
Thank you...
posted by speug at 8:27 AM on November 26, 2007