ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — When Lisa Sells decided to travel south for part of the winter, she wasn’t kidding.
Unlike the average snowbird, she didn’t stop in Florida to unwind on the sandy beaches. She even bypassed Mexico, with its promise of deliciously spiced food and the distilled liquor of the blue agave plant.
The Memphis-born woman, who moved to Newfoundland when she was eight, was having trouble choosing between two destinations — Costa Rica or Antarctica — for an excursion with her cameras, until she ran into two photographer friends, David Howells and Joe Chase, at a local coffee shop.
“They said Antarctica and so I did,” Sells said.
Not long after, Sells, who makes a living as a piano teacher, found herself in the southernmost part of Argentina — Ushuaia, often referred to as the end of the world — before boarding a ship to embark through the Drake Passage on her way toward Antarctica with about 200 other people.
“Everyone was terrified because it’s either called the Drake shake with enormous 40-foot waves and really rocky, or it’s the Drake lake, which is smooth,” Sells said.
For two days, it was smooth as ice, Sells said.
“It was beautiful, blue skies, sunshine,” she said.
During the 11-day cruise, passengers take in lectures, some of which are on the penguin colonies of Antarctica.
“This is an expedition cruise,” Sells said. “It’s more like a National Geographic type of cruise.”
Many of those on board were simply travelling, but some of them were there in a more professional capacity.
“There was an ornithologist from Paris, there was a Chilean expedition man who was always looking for new places to go because there’s always more to explore down there,” she said.
“Then there was an English fellow who told the stories of the different expeditions that had gone through the Antarctic and it was like listening to a feature film.”
GM..no matter how cold or dark a sunrise is the best start to the day! Enjoy.@StJohnsTelegram @sjmorningshow @DestinationSJ @geoffmeeker @McCarthysParty @WoRudolph @cbcnl @nlwx_yyt @ParksCanadaNL @NLtwts #sunrise #photography pic.twitter.com/I2JomRu4SW
— lisa Bokelmann sells (@lisasellspiano) January 8, 2020
Being the summer season in the south, the sun was shining about 22 hours a day. This was perfect for Sells, who is known for her photographs of the sun.
When Howells met Sells, he recognized her as the person behind the Instagram account @sunrise_sally.
“When I first met her (on Signal Hill) … I was in my usual outdoor gear and there was this woman in a fedora and giant silk scarf running around in the cold,” Howells said. “Certainly, she’d be the most stylish person in Antarctica.”
Howells has been a professional photographer for 26 years. He has photographed everyone from Henry Kissinger to Dog the Bounty Hunter, been on multiple presidential campaign trails and was in Louisiana during hurricane Katrina.
Where Sells thrives, Howells says, is not necessarily in the technical side of photography, but in the art of it.
“(She) brings this sort of, art first, camera second, as opposed to, oh look at the lens I got. … She doesn’t really care about the gear, it’s more about the pictures,” he said. “Which is great because it means everybody else gets better, too.”
GM...we are getting there! And what a beautiful morning!@StJohnsTelegram @CBCNL @nlwx_yyt @VOCMOpenline @HappyCitySJ @DowntownStJohns @sjmorningshow @DestinationSJ #snowmaggedon2020 #streetphotographer @geoffmeeker @WoRudolph #sunrise #downtown pic.twitter.com/5h8YvEpmfb
— lisa Bokelmann sells (@lisasellspiano) January 24, 2020
Her talent is in her eye, Howells said.
This becomes evident when Sells speaks about her experience in Antarctica, becoming animated by her memories.
“There was so much energy on that ship,” Sells said. “I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would have to look out my window and see what colour the sky was now.”
It went from pink to purple to bright blue to dark blue, she says.
“Then you’d see an iceberg with little penguins on it, or just glaciers. … The energy was just contagious.”
On the third morning a voice spoke over the loudspeaker. They were ahead of schedule, it said, and they’d be making their first landing at Hardy Cove.
Zodiacs were lowered from the top of the ship. Sells was part of the seal group, who were asked to meet in the mudroom in 10 minutes, so she put on her waterproof clothes and boots.
“The first place we went was all white and blue, with rocks a bit like Newfoundland, big grey, silver rocks,” she said. “Then suddenly two penguins popped out of the water and I said, ‘Woo, I’m in the Antarctic!’”
GM...beautiful way to start the week. Enjoy!@DestinationSJ @StJohnsTelegram @weathernetwork @wo_rudolph1 @McCarthysParty @ParksCanadaNL @NLtweets @nlwx_yyt @ExperienceNL #sunreise #photograghy @vocm @sjmorningshow @RamonaDearing pic.twitter.com/oJ3CSt8USa
— lisa Bokelmann sells (@lisasellspiano) November 18, 2019
Everyone was taking pictures, while Sells walked in a different direction, nearly tripping over a leopard seal.
“He was just sort of lying camouflaged in the rocks,” she said. “You do not want to trip over one because they’re quite dangerous.”
From there they visited about two colonies of penguins a day, she says, while navigating around enormous icebergs.
“There was one that was 913 metres long,” she said.
Every so often, an iceberg would break off one of the glacial shelves.
“You could hear them crashing,” Sells said. “Sometimes they would be breaking off and it was quite a loud boom out of nowhere.”
The expansiveness of white and blue, the changing colours of the sky being absorbed by the snow, the humpback whales, everything she saw was simply stunning, she says.
“For a photographer, very interesting,” she says. “You never have a point where you stop taking (photographs).”
Spending her vacation taking pictures without interruption was exactly what she wanted to do.
“I just wanted to be off the grid,” she says. “It felt great.”
Twitter: @andrewLwaterman
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