Shooting ice: A career photographing glaciers

"It was pretty unstructured," he said. "I needed to do something different and thought a steady paycheck might be a nice change."

The change wasn't all in the form of a schedule and a paycheck. The photographer from "a long line of Pennsylvania dirt farmers" found himself swept up by Alaska.

"It was the first time I saw wilderness -- and I fell in love with it," he said.

In particular he fell in love with glaciers and ice, "cold, dark, expensive and dangerous places." He bought a small Zodiac inflatable boat and outboard motor with which he got close to the glaciers of Prince William Sound and Kenai Fjords. Sometimes too close for comfort.

Souders recalled riding out a 10-foot swell when a Kenai glacier calved. "It happened really fast and there was nothing I could do. You can't outrun it, just set the bow into it and hope. It's really unsettling. Your stomach's up in your throat."

In November of 1993, Souders left Alaska to pursue an international career as a wildlife and nature photographer. From his present headquarters in Seattle, he has traveled around the world. His next planned excursion is to Tanzania to document the migration of African animals "and to get out of Seattle in February."

But he's continued to shoot ice. Not just in Alaska, but in Greenland, Antarctica and the arctic regions of Norway, getting dangerously close to the walls of ice in his 10-foot inflatable with its 10-horsepower kicker. And sometimes diving into the frigid seas to take photos of the underwater formations.

"Doing it solo, you can be as stupid as you want to be," he said. "I've been scared a lot, done a bunch of really dumb things. Gosh, in Greenland, it's so big and so wild, it's just an unforgiving environment. When I go there, I'm on my own completely.

"I've been pinned in by the ice after a glacier calves, I've had to get out and drag the boat across these little bobbing pieces of ice. And of course diving under an iceberg alone is always a kind of sketchy thing.

"Sometimes I've been at a prudent distance. Other times, less prudent. It's the photographer's dilemma: You always want to get as close to your subject as possible. But when there's a wall of spray and ice coming at you, you just know -- oooh, this is going to be really cold."

But it has led to some remarkable pictures. Earlier this year he won first and second place in the Underwater Photography category in the BBC's Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. And last month the Daily Mail of England published some of the chilly images Souder has captured since his Alaska days, images we share with our readers today.

Souders says he didn't think of the glacier photos as an ongoing body of work when he began taking them. But now he's contemplating expanding the series to include the glaciers of Europe, the Andes, the Himalayas and elsewhere. "It would be an interesting project with an exhibit and book to show at the end of it," he said.

And it might bring him and his Zodiac back to Anchorage for fresh adventures.

"Anchorage was a wonderful opportunity to get to tidewater glaciers without too much effort," he said. "It still blows me away that you live within 100 miles of these things."

Reach Mike Dunham at mdunham@adn.com or 257-4332.