One of nearly two dozen humpback whales identified during the expedition.
One of nearly two dozen humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) identified during the expedition.

Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia

Charismatic mega fauna and micro flora abound during this 2022 expedition to a temperate rainforest in Canada aboard the National Geographic Venture.

This adventure was rescheduled from both 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions adopted by the Canadian government.

Eclipse Megamovie Project

My contributions to the Megamovie, including the one above, were captured in Stanley, Idaho. The bright star Regulus is visible as a blue dot in the lower left of the photo.

It was a pleasure to participate in this unique effort to document a total solar eclipse as it traveled across the United States from coast to coast. 

Sponsored by UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, Google and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the project produced the Eclipse Megamovie motion picture from thousands of photos of the solar corona taken by 1,500 project photographers in August 2017. 

This was my second total solar eclipse, and I'm looking forward to another opportunity to photograph the solar corona in 2024.

Don Ingman fishing the Salmon River in Stanley, Idaho immediately prior to totality.
Don Ingman fishes the Salmon River in Stanley, Idaho as the sky darkens immediately prior to totality.
The Milky Way and plenty of local stars are visible in this wide-angle view of the bowl of night taken the evening prior to the eclipse.
A cold beer and homemade eclipse art goes with citizen science.
A cold beer and homemade eclipse art goes well with citizen science.

Southern Line Islands

In the photo above, first officer Heidi Norling of the National Geographic Orion considers how to safely navigate near Flint Island in the Southern Line Islands Marine Reserve.

As a 2018 follow-up to National Geographic's 2008 Pristine Seas Project, this exploration of the Southern Line Islands clearly demonstrated the ongoing impact of climate change on coral ecology. Every reef we visited showed signs of heat stress, including bleaching and algal blooms, as a result of elevated ocean temperatures.

Additionally, the inexorably rising Pacific Ocean has encroached on fresh water resources across the widely distributed islands of Kiribati, rendering nearly all of the low-lying atolls uninhabitable.

Arguably one of the most remote locations on Earth, these coral atolls nearest the international date line present a clear indication of things to come across the globe as the planet warms.

But yet, life abounds here on the land, in the sea and in the air.

The atolls we visited are protected from commercial exploitation by the government of Kiribati, and government officials accompanied us during the expedition partly to look for indications of unauthorized human activity. I, for one, am thankful for that level of official concern.

Coral reef researcher Dr. Caitlyn Webster navigates an expedition Zodiac through the inner lagoon of Caroline/Millennium Island
Coral reef researcher Dr. Caitlyn Webster navigates an expedition Zodiac through the inner lagoon of Caroline/Millennium Island.

"Ring of Fire" Annular Solar Eclipse, New Mexico

A composite image showing the phases of an annular solar eclipse.
A multiple exposure image that captures the Baily's beads phenomena. Baily's beads occur when the irregular lunar surface partially blocks light from the sun during a solar eclipse.