"Chasing Ice"? Yeah, and it really is moving fast.
I love it when stuff that I've looked at in the past comes in handy in the present.
As part of my Geography A-Level, I studied cold environments and had to collect research for an essay-style report to be written in exam conditions. One particular source of my studies for this topic came from a 2012 documentary called Chasing Ice. It was made to communicate that, with sound visual evidence, ice melt and climate change are very real and very serious matters that are taking effect at an alarming rate.
The documentary was created by nature photographer James Balog and his autodidact team of fellow photographers and technicians who make up the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS). The group travelled to many different locations across the frozen north to photograph and record the movements of some of the planet's most impressive - and volatile - glaciers. These enormous expanses of ice have been changing dramatically over recent years, receding more and more as time goes on.
Balog has then taken the footage and photos captured from the many cameras placed strategically around the glaciers in question, conducting hard-hitting environmental presentations to leaders of some of the world's largest fossil fuel corporations and also to Fox News, which is notorious for its frankly outlandish views that climate change is a "hoax". If there is any creative individual who are totally fearless about suffering for their art, it's Balog and his EIS team.
In terms of the actual photography, Balog has produced some incredible stuff indeed. Some of the images appear to have been edited in Photoshop or whatever, but a closer look reveals them to be entirely genuine and natural in their colour saturation and "effects". This is of course because James believes that when photographing nature, one should remain true to it. He says:
"I've believed for a long time that photographers are like the antennae of civilisation. We are an integral part of the sensing mechanism of the human animal. We are out there feeling in the darkness, trying to see what's around us and reveal what hasn't been before. I would like to think that passionate, involved photographers would be looking at the world and trying their hardest to speak about the important things that are going on today."
That quote really takes me back to David Bailey and his views on the modelling industry, and how together he and Jean Shrimpton turned the fashion world on its head - in a week...
A glance below at some of Balog's images illustrates his personal philosophy very clearly to me.
Does this last one look familiar?
As part of my Geography A-Level, I studied cold environments and had to collect research for an essay-style report to be written in exam conditions. One particular source of my studies for this topic came from a 2012 documentary called Chasing Ice. It was made to communicate that, with sound visual evidence, ice melt and climate change are very real and very serious matters that are taking effect at an alarming rate.
The documentary was created by nature photographer James Balog and his autodidact team of fellow photographers and technicians who make up the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS). The group travelled to many different locations across the frozen north to photograph and record the movements of some of the planet's most impressive - and volatile - glaciers. These enormous expanses of ice have been changing dramatically over recent years, receding more and more as time goes on.
Balog has then taken the footage and photos captured from the many cameras placed strategically around the glaciers in question, conducting hard-hitting environmental presentations to leaders of some of the world's largest fossil fuel corporations and also to Fox News, which is notorious for its frankly outlandish views that climate change is a "hoax". If there is any creative individual who are totally fearless about suffering for their art, it's Balog and his EIS team.
In terms of the actual photography, Balog has produced some incredible stuff indeed. Some of the images appear to have been edited in Photoshop or whatever, but a closer look reveals them to be entirely genuine and natural in their colour saturation and "effects". This is of course because James believes that when photographing nature, one should remain true to it. He says:
"I've believed for a long time that photographers are like the antennae of civilisation. We are an integral part of the sensing mechanism of the human animal. We are out there feeling in the darkness, trying to see what's around us and reveal what hasn't been before. I would like to think that passionate, involved photographers would be looking at the world and trying their hardest to speak about the important things that are going on today."
That quote really takes me back to David Bailey and his views on the modelling industry, and how together he and Jean Shrimpton turned the fashion world on its head - in a week...
A glance below at some of Balog's images illustrates his personal philosophy very clearly to me.
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