Many photographers have one goal: to feed the public’s desire to see the unseen. BBC tapped into that desire when it rolled out an 11-hour documentary, Planet Earth. Dozens of photographers were sent all across the globe, literally shooting from the North Pole to the South Pole and everywhere in between, to showcase nature in a way no one had ever seen.
“The original vision was that, if you look at nature in cinema, it’s been played on a relatively small canvas,” executive producer of Planet Earth Alastair Fothergill said at a press conference. “Nobody had ever tried to do the whole planet, and it seemed to be the perfect time. We wanted to make an epic movie about an epic subject, which is the natural history of the whole planet.”
That epic movie turned into a $25 million project, shot over the course of five years, with about 70 photographers crisscrossing the world to shoot various pieces of the documentary.
Simon King, a veteran wildlife photographer from England, was one of the photographers asked to shoot for the extensive documentary.
“I knew it was going to be a big project,” he tells the Manfrotto School of Xcellence. “I wound up with several assignments that took me all over, including South Africa and Antarctica.”
In South Africa, King set out to capture the great white shark. A 5,000 pound, teeth-bearing predator that most Americans associate with the famous 1975 movie Jaws. To get video of these massive creatures, King and a small crew chartered a boat off the western coast of the country in False Bay. To sharks, this spot is a seal buffet.
With an HD camera that shot 15 times slower than normal and an onboard computer to immediately download the footage, King was ready to shoot sharks in their natural habitat. Of course, when you’re shooting wildlife, you have to be patient. Nature dictates your schedule. King went out on the boat day after day and just didn’t get the sequence he wanted. It took three weeks on the boat to capture the money shot, and he knew it when he shot it.
“I knew it was a sexy shot,” he says. “I knew I punched record as soon as the shark breeched the water. I knew it was in frame and in focus, and once we saw the shot on the computer, we knew it was the one.”
The behind the scenes video shows King and the crew on the hunt for that perfect shot.
At the end of the video, you see the slow motion shot used in the ninth episode of Planet Earth, Shallow Seas. (You can also see a clip on the BBC site.) It’s a breathtaking shot of a great white shark emerging from the water and swallowing a seal whole.
King’s shark assignment was accomplished, but now he faced a whole new journey. From the shark-infested waters of South Africa, he traveled to the bone-chilling climate of Antarctica, where summer temperatures reach -30.
King bought the warmest gear he could find and set out across the icecaps to capture a flock of birds that claim the southern-most breeding ground. With about a dozen cases of equipment, King and a small crew trekked through snow and ice in search of snow petrels.
King was able to shoot the white, pigeon-sized birds that lay eggs in the rocky cliffs of the Antarctic. The video of the snow petrels wound up in sixth episode of Planet Earth, Ice Worlds.
“I was one of several photographers who had the chance to show the world sights and sounds that most people won’t see in their lifetime, so showing them through a series like Planet Earth is a great way to introduce the public to wildlife they’ve never seen.”
Planet Earth was first released on BBC One in the U.K. in 2006, and in the U.S. in 2007. While the documentary has been out for several years, its popularity is still growing. To date, the film has played in 130 countries.
