In the Storm

Description

My first trip to Svalbard was to photograph arctic foxes. It was a few months after I had left my job in the Internet industry and plunged into the uncertain waters of freelancing as a photographer and educator – and some success would have been useful at the time. But the foxes had a different opinion and decided not to cooperate. On the other hand, coincidence brought reindeer in front of my lens, and I took advantage of it. I created a series of photos that won an award in the Czech Press Photo competition a few months later. The series included this picture, which I took on the last day of our trip – the only day when the weather showed us its arctic nature with frost and snowstorm, when the reindeer lay down and waited for the bad weather to end. We didn’t even want to take pictures that afternoon, but in the end we forced ourselves to try. I’ve learned since then that it’s always worth not giving up too soon.