Avairi. Imagine the sound of tens of thousands of bird wings. Add their calls to each other. Then imagine everything moving at once against the spectacular backdrop of Svalbard. The multiply this by all the different species. Arctic tern, Auk, Barnacle Goose, Brünnich’s guillemot, Dunlin, Eider, Fulmar, Geese, Ivory Gull, Kittewakes, Little Auk, Puffins, Purple Sandpiper, Seagulls, Snow Bunting.. all having found their resting and nesting in the landscape.

It is difficult to balance the close-up perfection of a bird with the enormity of the place. The color in the details of a puffin’s visage with the sudden speedy flight. The unseen grace of underwater flight with the whirling flocks. Dancing in the sky without ever touching another. Plummeting down a cliff face to gain flight or scrambling on the surface of the ocean to gain liftoff. The hidden nests buried into the cliff side or the camouflage of an egg on the ground.

This is the avairi of the arctic. A place where everything is in motion. We only capture a blink. An instant. A two-dimensional image that is gone and never will be the same. It is as if it a snowflake with its near infinite possibility of shape. Each beautiful to see before it melts away.