Happy New Year! I took this picture of a baby harp seal in the Magdalen Islands off the coast of Nova Scotia in Canada. I had been dropped by helicopter on pack ice -- frozen ocean water -- wearing a bright orange jump suit on top of my parka, the better to be seen in case I fell through the ice. I was warned to avoid patches of dark snow and ice. The temperature was minus 45 degrees, making this the first time I'd experienced this kind of cold. I was shooting medium format film in the early 90's (with a Mamiya RZ 67), and what I remember so clearly is when I'd finish a roll of film (20 exposures), there was an adhesive paper I'd have to moisten by licking it to seal the end of the roll of film. It was so cold the adhesive didn't work. I had to use rubber bands to hold the paper backing tight so the film wouldn't be inadvertently exposed and ruined. I took this shot with a tripod, and I remember using a 250mm telephoto which is comparable to a 135mm focal length in the full frame digital format. My settings were unrecorded, but knowing how I used to shoot, they would have been 1/250, f/11, and 100 ISO. I was shooting with Fujichrome Provia 100. The developed transparency was scanned by an Imacon scanner to digitize it.
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