Putting this together as my own sketched version of the game, I could explain this journey much more clearly than with just a timetable – and I liked it so much I made a basic handout for my second years as well, to remind them of the stages that should go into writing an essay. And the iceberg shape works for that – if you are on a path starting in the middle, going down, then coming up, then going down (this time deeper), and coming back up again. But what in my experience students often didn’t understand (or at least failed to put into practice) is that you don’t do all the research first and then just write it up in order to put together a great essay, you do some research, some writing, some more research, some rewriting, etc. the writing of drafts and the finished piece – and some are invisible under the waterline – i.e. So one day I started doodling a game, fitting it into the analogy of the iceberg (which you might be familiar with from Writing Essays by Pictures), that some things are visible over the waterline – i.e. I also was trying to explain to my students how the sessions we do in class map onto the researching and writing they should do, which I always struggled with. But then I was wondering what my version would look like. I have seen some wonderful ones, a lot based on Snakes and Ladders, some on Monopoly, memorable versions of Twister and Cluedo, and other that freestyle it. They want to believe that it is.Before last term, however, I had always left the fun of designing these games to the students. The interesting thing about it I think is how much the image resonated with people, and how many of them are so disappointed when they hear it’s not real. In reality you couldn’t take a photograph like that. It got shared and sent around, got on these “10-most-amazing-photo-story” things. He supposedly saw an iceberg and jumped in the water and took the photograph. There was a story going around on the Internet that this picture was taken by a worker on an oilrig in the North Sea. What accounts for the iceberg photograph’s endurance? Finally, in the last several years, people have started coming up with icebergs of their own. But so many people, instead of being creative enough to come up with their own idea, just copied mine. What surprised me is that other photographers and artists didn’t create their own version of an iceberg. But what I can copyright is the look of my iceberg. How do you feel about all the copies of your iceberg floating around?Īn iceberg is an iceberg. He’d say, ‘I want you to work on owls, because they’re wise.’ Eagles are proud, lions are kingly, elephants never forget. We think of it less as a cliché and more as a concept. One of the things that Craig Aurness understood was that the whole idea with stock images is to create images that many different clients will be able to use in many different ways. Is there a method to creating great stock photos, like the iceberg? One of the latest uses was for a Coors Light commercial on TV. It’s sold refrigerators, de-icing machines. You can also use it to talk about anything with ice. ‘What you see isn’t what you get,’ is another. It’s been used by thousands of clients for different things. Chrysler was one of the first, a big double-page ad in a dozen magazines. He advertised in graphic design manuals and sent out direct mailers. How did this iceberg photograph get so widespread ?īy the time we finished creating the iceberg, Craig already had a marketing plan for it. We created what at that time was an enormous file, eight megapixels. This is pretty early in the days of Photoshop. Craig Aurness, who ran the stock photo agency I worked for, told me to research what a real iceberg would look like, the physics of how it would float in the water, so we could get it accurate. I just cut out a section of an iceberg and then flipped it and put it underwater. I took the picture of the bottom part of the iceberg in Alaska, above water. I took the picture of the top part of the iceberg in Antarctica when I was there on assignment.

The shot of the clouds was taken here in Santa Barbara. The image is composed of four separate pictures. How did you capture such a majestic-looking iceberg? From his home in Santa Barbara, California, Clevenger had a chat with Nautilus about the origins and remarkable longevity of his most famous picture-as well as how it was photoshopped. When it came out, it was actually pretty original. A professional photographer for more than three decades, he’s shot for National Geographic, Outside, Audubon, and other magazines, yet he says this image is still what he’s most known for. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience.

Iceberg picture underwater