Vega Expeditions

Another Bearded seal resting on an ice floe. As a part of our expeditions you will be guided by the Vega team which has many years of experience from photography in the Arctic. Angles, light and back ground is second nature to us.

A bearded seal gets its rusty color from exactly that, rust! As it digs in the bottom sediments for shellfish the iron rich sediments get stuck in its fur and oxidizes. On an overcast day the light is soft and it’s up to the guides to approach slowly to get you close enough for a great picture.

Come and join us on a last minute opening on our Svalbard Photography expedition from 10-18 June 2024 on MS Freya! Only 12 participants in total, and you get a spacious single cabin.
DM us now if you can change your plans for next month and want to enjoy the Arctic with your expedition guides Yves Adams and Albert Michaud! A golden opportunity, since this is a last year we can travel around Svalbard without the coming new rules…!

Photos: Yves Adams - Nature Photographer

Walrus on the drift ice in a foggy Svalbard. Photographed from our expedition ship MS Freya, thanks to the low decks it’s possible to get low camera viewpoints 📸

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SVALBARD SUMMER PHOTOGRAPHY 🚢
- Small groups, great adventures! –

Join us on a spectacular expedition guided by professional photographers! With a small group of 12, we discover the Arctic wildlife, sail into ice-covered fjords, and spend lots of time in the pack ice, taking pictures in the midnight sun. Welcome aboard!

Embark on our winter Svalbard expedition this April! On our ice-strengthened ship MS Freya we explore a very photogenic and graphic wintery Svalbard.

Check out our website if you want to join us on this photography expedition, only two spots left!

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On our winter photo expedition in Svalbard conditions can be magic. Imagine being in a white out in the pack ice with Polar bears hanging around the ship!

If you are in for a high Arctic cold adventure and want to photograph in winter conditions, we have some spots left on our photo-expedition from 15-23 April 2024!

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Polar bear cubs are born around December and emerge from their den end of March-April. They grow fast during the next weeks and have to learn how to hunt, following their mother with every footstep.
If you want to see the smallest cubs, you need to explore early in the season. And have some luck of course! Here we just witnessed the mother bear catching a Ringed seal pup! The Polar bears cubs were so excited!

Embark on our winter Svalbard expedition this April! On our ice-strengthened ship MS Freya we sail through massive fields of ice in search of Arctic wildlife and wintery Svalbard scenery.

Can you imagine the cold and silence, while standing on the ship’s bow, and see this endless surface of graphic ice?

Check out our website if you want to join us on this photography expedition, only two spots left!

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Want to explore East-Greenland with us next year? In September we explore Scoresby Sund fjords on board of MS Freya, with just 12 passengers, guided by Yves Adams and Vera Simonsson. This is a photography expedition and we only have two spots left! Check our website for more info!

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SVALBARD WINTER PHOTOGRAPHY ❄️🌅
- Small groups, great adventures! -

Join us on a spectacular expedition, guided by renowned photographers! With a small group of 12, we spot wildlife on the pack ice, cruise in front of glaciers, and explore the fjords and icebergs in the Arctic wilderness. Welcome aboard!

Small groups, great adventures! With a very small group of just 12 photographers, exploring the Arctic becomes very intimate. With our two large scale rubber boats or zodiacs, we split up in two little groups so we get all the space to move around and handle those long lenses. With fewer people, the little boat moves around less, it gets more quiet and experiences just get so much better.

Up for a spot yourself? Have a look at our website for our offers for our next year’s season in Svalbard!

If you are in for a unique high Arctic cold adventure and want to photograph in winter conditions, we have some spots left on our photo-expedition from 15-23 April 2024!

Imagine you get a wake up call in your cabin, we just anchored our expedition ship for the morning and we spotted a Polar bear hanging around on the fast ice! Get your camera and dress warm and join us out on deck!
This is a very possible scenario when you join us on a photo expedition in Svalbard!

If you are in for this high Arctic cold adventure and want to photograph in winter conditions, we have some spots left on our photo-expedition from 15-23 April 2024!

JOIN US IN 2024!

Next year we will travel North again on several photography dedicated Arctic expeditions with small groups -only 12 participants- on board of our ice strengthened ship MS Freya!

Explore our website for dates and destinations, from Svalbard to Greenland to Canada! Spots are limited so don’t freeze and head out to www.vegaexpeditions.com and subscribe for our newsletter, tomorrow can be your lucky day to receive your first Vega newsletter📮

If you traveled with us on one of our Svalbard expeditions this year, or before, give us a comment below so you can assure our future Vega travelers not to hesitate 🐻‍❄️

Pictures by Yves Adams - Nature Photographer

Congratulations Andrea! She took this great picture during our Vega Expeditions photography tour this summer and now it’s on the cover of Science Advances! We love it!

Photographer Mia Surakka decided to go on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure and joined us to Svalbard in June. Now, she is convinced she wants to experience our expeditions more than once! 🗻🌊🤩

Mia challenged herself to capture Svalbard’s nature in a versatile way, and we think her mission was accomplished! Discover her story and images on our blog!👌🏻

A bird photographer in Svalbard Finnish photographer Mia Surakka shares her images of our June expedition.

We finished our 2023 Svalbard season with a late autumn trip on Kinfish and got spoiled with a very snowy and cold September! Great Polar bear photography opportunities and several Arctic fox meetings in an almost early Spring decor. Check out our stories with fantastic images from our participants!
A huge thanks to everyone that joined us this year, and to all the people we worked with, the crew on Freya and Kinfish, without them our expeditions would have never been so successful! Thank you! And thank you, for following us, and being a great support!
Time to look forward for next year now, with many new Svalbard and Greenland photo expeditions! Ànd a new destination on our program, Polar bears in Churchill! But more about that soon!

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Big Polar bear on what is left of a Bearded seal, photographed during one of our Svalbard Vega Expeditions phototours on a moody foggy day.

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Northern fulmar crossing a snowy day in Svalbard. Days are getting cold now and we will expect some snowfall, perfect situations for some early wintery photographs!

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Counting down the days before we start on another Svalbard expedition!
It will be our last for this season, but many to come again, including Greenland! Have a look at our website and join us next year!

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Ringed seal enjoying its early morning swim in the calm waters in front of Lilliehöök glacier. As a true photomodel it came close to our zodiac curiously swimming around multiple times and giving us the best poses!
With less than 1,5m length they are the smallest seal species in the Arctic, but are the most abundant.

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Northern fulmar bathing in the golden Arctic midnight summer sun in Kongsfjord. We had set out on our zodiacs around 23:00 and had so much fun photographing birds and seals with this amazing light that we forgot about the time and only returned to the ship at 6:00 🙈

Polar bear mom trying to convince her two newborn cubs to go for a little swim in Arctic waters. They seem a bit hesitant…don’t you think 🤔?

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During one of our recent trips we spotted this rare little bird on the East Coast of Svalbard! It was so cooperative to let us get close by 🤗
Do you know which species this is?
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After 24 hours of searching through the Arctic pack ice my colleague and friend Yves Adams suddenly tensed up on the port bridge wing. “I believe there is a bear straight ahead” he said in a both excited yet controlled voice. What he saw through his stabilized turned out to be a large male on a fresh kill no less than 7 kilometers away. We spent several hours in the rubber boats admiring this apex predator feasting on a bearded seal. Some 70 kilos of blubber and tens of thousands of photographs later we all had silly smiles on our faces and sailed towards new amazing experiences in the Svalbard archipelago. Photo: This is not a sponsored post.

A polar bear mother and her two cubs on an ice floe in front of a glacier. It was dead still, not a breath of wind. One of the two cubs kept on making a loud cry which echoed in the fjord. It was eerie yet mesmerizing. Join us next year on a small ship for more experiences like this. Photo:

Blacklegged Kittiwakes are everywhere in Svalbard. Their slightly anxious, almost eerie cry fills the air along the coasts and on the open water. They form life long couples and every year they nest on the steep cliffs, rearing 1-3 chicks. They are often chased by cleptoparasitic Skuas and sometimes photographed by curious tourists. They are always beautiful against the backdrop of a glacier face. Photo:

During a late night cruise in the heavy glacier ice off Kungsbreen we found ourselves closer and closer to a Bearded seal. His backlit whiskers impressed us and told a story of a life lived searching for food in the dark Arctic ocean. His only resting place an ice floe, constantly on the lookout for the ever lurking Polar Bear… Photo:

Little auk taking a break from the loud summer colony on the cliffs in Svalbard. Zodiac or rubber bot excursions are the best way to photograph birds on the water, without needing to drag the tons of photo equipment for hours. You just bring on board what you got, and enjoy the birds almost from water level. And with maximum 6 people on board of each zodiac, you have plenty of space to see all directions and bring all the gear! See next picture for that :)

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Visit our website if you want to join us on an expedition in the high Arctic! We travel with small groups and many of our tours are exclusively photography orientated!

 

We are traveling up north again to guide some Svalbard expeditions! Just like many other seasons, we are working on the beautiful ship MS Freya again! As one of the first expedition team to bring small groups to Svalbard on small expedition ships, we know why MS Freya is one of our number one choices! Don’t make any compromise on your Svalbard or Greenland expedition and come and see for yourself why we and many others that joined us love this amazing expedition vessel!

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