In the past few weeks I’ve had two separate requests to use my photos for commercial purposes. That’s gratifying, but both of them were a bit odd.

One guy wanted to make “Happy Birthday” greeting cards with the photo showing a group of penguins.  Inside, it says something sentimental and has a long description of emperor penguins. I’m not sure how that goes with “Happy Birthday”, but whatever. The second request was from someone running on-line novelty company who wanted to make a bookmark of the two kissing penguins, with his dog Photoshopped in there too. Huh? Uh, okay.

It’s all small-time stuff, so I told both that they could use the photos with the caveat that if they made any real money, I should get a cut.

If  I start seeing my pictures in Walmart, however, I’m going to chase these guys down extract a piece of the action.

Drydock of the NOAA ship Rainier.

MPIC stands for Medical Person In Charge; it’s a Coast Guard certification for medics who work aboard vessels. The nearest equivalent is EMT-B (Basic) — our text book was actually an EMT study guide. The main difference is that MPIC training has slightly different protocols because, presumably, you’re out at sea when the problem arises and you can’t just transport your patient to the nearest hospital. It’s kind of like being a Wilderness EMT but with a sick-bay and telephone available.

The other day I was walking through a bookstore in Port Angeles and I looked up at the periodicals rack. There, in bold colors, was a magazine with one of my pictures on the cover. World Watch magazine used the sunset and seaice photo I submitted to the USAP photo library (taken on the NBP last year, see one of my earlier posts). Very cool! Okay, it’s not Vanity Fair or Cosmo, but I’ll take it. They also used another of my photos inside the magazine in an article about Antarctica.

My first cover photo. Oh, my second if you count the USAP Participant Guide. Yee-ha.

Alright, it’s not my photo, but a photo of me. One of my favorite things: sitting on the beach, flying kites.

Today I found out that they’re using one of my photos as the cover to this year’s USAP Participant Guide. In the Antarctic world, this is like having your picture on the cover of Rolling Stone. Groovy! They also use four other photos of mine in the guide. Along those same lines, the latest issue of The Polar Times uses my photo of the new South Pole Station as the main picture in their centerfold. Most cool! That was a surprise.

It was nine intensive days of fun and hell. Wilderness First Responder (”Woofer”) is a certification for people who may need to treat medical problems in the back-country or any other remote location.

A week or two before I left the Pole I was invited to take some aerial photographs of the station, at the request of the NSF. (Several of us did this, I got to do it through dogged persistence.) It was way fun. I’ll try to remember to post some photos. And yesterday I found out that one of my photos is being shown in the Oceanographic and Polar Museum in Monaco. Cool!

Most of these were taken either at McMurdo, or on the flight to the Pole.