How’d You Get That Picture? Tracking the Wily Arctic Weasel With Photographer Olivier Morin
Based in Milan, Italy, Olivier Morin is a staff photographer at Agence France-Presse, where he’s worked for two decades, with a specialty in sports. Morin was awarded first prize in the 2000 Fuji photo contest for an archery picture from the Sydney Olympics and won Italy’s sports picture of the year in 2013 for a shot of Usain Bolt at the World Championships in Moscow. Here he shares a delightful story with Flipboard about tracking the elusive weasel in the Arctic.
I arrived, without luggage (which will prove to be crucial to this story), on Lofoten Island, a remote part of Norway near the top of the world in the Arctic Circle, on March 7 to do a feature story about surfing. I was set up for a 9-day shoot, which I hoped would produce two good days of conditions for surfing.
The Bay of Unstad is small but known all around the world by surfers for its very good waves and for those addicted to winter surfing in freezing cold waters. The water temperature is about 5°C at this time of the year, air temperature is around 0°C.
The morning after my arrival from Milan, where I’m based, while still waiting for news from the airport about my missing bags, I walked down to the beach to start checking out the different angles to photograph the surfers. The sun is shining, everything is white, no waves. No one is surfing. But I’m inspired by the epic scenery.
Because my photo bag was all I had, I took 2 cameras and 2 lenses (24–70mm f2,8 and 80–400 mm f 4,5–5,6 ) on my scouting trip.
I was looking around the beautiful, big round rocks covered by snow, all around the bay, studying the waves, when I suddenly was attracted by a slinking move on my left side at about 20m. I thought right away it might be a bird. A second later, still not sure what it was, I saw a fast, white animal, diving under a snowy rock. After few moments, (I still haven’t identified it at this point) it jumped off and ran to another rock, closer to me. It was white with a black tip at the end of its tail, black eyes and a black nose. Definitely not a bird, more like a ferret.
Moving the least I could, I was shuttering as discreetly as possible and controlling my moves so as not to scare it. Of course, this weasel probably saw me at the first second, even before I saw it, but I did not seem to be a threat. It was coming closer and closer to me, making a stop at every rock, and finally ended up 4 meters from my foot, pretending to ignore me but remaining very alert to any of my mini moves. Unbelievable.
After a minute of photographing, the weasel, curiosity satisfied and/or bored, ran away the same way it came. I tried to follow it as far as I could, but I lost it quite fast. Something about its natural camouflage; it really is a study in white on white.
At this moment I was by myself in the bay, and was happy to have been so lucky about this unpredictable meeting. It was the first time I saw an Arctic Weasel in the wilderness. Its agility, its speed and the total silence when it moves almost made it unreal.
If I had my luggage that day, I probably would have been getting my gear ready for the surf session. I wouldn’t have gone down to the bay and I would have missed this amazing moment. The next day, once the surfers and waves arrived, I was able to complete my original assignment. See Gallery here.
Photographers (and everyone else) hate it when airlines lose their bags, but this time it was a happy accident and I made an incredible picture.
Camera Details:
Camera: Nikon D5
Lens: Nikon 80–400mm shot at 400mm
ISO: 400
Shutter Speed: 1/1000th second
Aperture: F5.6
Olivier can be found at Website: AFP , Twitter: @afpolm, Instagram: Olivier.Morin
This excerpt has been republished from The Shot, Flipboard’s Photography Magazine and hub, and reprinted with permission from the photographer. For more about Olivier and his photography, including more amazing pictures from nature, read The Shot! It also includes:
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