Chasing Ice
This spring my wife and I are planning a vacation to Iceland. My wife spent six months in Iceland back in 2003 working in Keflavik at the United States Naval Air Station. She has always wanted to return.
I am not a big fan of cold weather or wind, however I have always wanted to visit Iceland to photograph the landscape of Iceland. With active volcanos, glaciers, thermal pools, geysers, waterfalls and beautiful aurora borealis, why wouldn’t anyone want to go.I have already started to take inventory of the gear I would need. It will be mid April when we go so it will still be cold and I will need some real winter gear. It will be the wind that I am not going to like. It’s very windy in Iceland. So windy that if you park your car the wrong way and open the door, the wind can be strong enough to rip open the door and fold it to the fender.
If anyone has any suggestions on what to see and the “out-of-the-way” don’t miss photographic opportunities, please leave a comment. I would really like to hear any suggestions.
In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth’s changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change. But that first trip north opened his eyes to the biggest story in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.
Chasing Ice is the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers.
As the debate polarizes America and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Balog finds himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he comes face to face with his own mortality. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his labor. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet. – website Chasing Ice.
An ABC News interview with James Balog
The Pixel Hoarder 