icebergs

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Photography

A Striking Photo Series Documents the Melting Glaciers Along 4,000 Kilometers of Greenland’s Coast

What began in July 2003 as a single visit to the frigid Ilulissat Icefjord in western Greenland morphed into a years-long project for German photographer Olaf Otto Becker. That initial trip prompted fourteen subsequent voyages to the Arctic coastlines, where he captured monumental glaciers calving and crumbling into the ocean and still expanses of water through bleak nighttime light. “Every day, huge thundering masses of ice break into the sea, causing the sea level to rise slowly but incessantly,” he writes.

Becker compiled the striking images in his Broken Line series, which frames the remote regions from Ilulissat to Uummannaq and Upernavik to Melvillebay. Navigating thick fog and unpredictable waters alone in a rubber raft, he traveled along 4,000 kilometers of coastlines between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. when the midsummer light illuminated the landscape and used long exposures to capture the vistas. Becker details his grueling excursions—these involved being struck by an iceberg that plunged him into the water, broke his rib, and caused a concussion—on PetaPixel, where he also explains the urgency of documenting the glacial forms:

Numerous houses in the village of Nuugaatsiaq were washed out to sea. Scientists found the debris avalanche was triggered by the growing warming of the rocks. The brittle rock is no longer held together by the permafrost, so the danger of rockfalls has been increasing for years. Scientists have calculated that, in addition, the coasts of Greenland and the island itself will rise significantly because of the melting of the tons of ice, while the rising sea level will literally drown some coasts. Everything will change.

The stunning photos shown here are compiled in a book by the same name, and Becker shares more of his projects that document the changing landscapes on his site. You also might enjoy the diverse glacial shots captured by Jan Erik Waider.

 

Science

A Nearly Perfect Rectangular Iceberg Spotted in the Antarctic

Earlier this month NASA’s cryosphere research division, NASA ICE, posted an image of a peculiar iceberg floating near the Larsen C Ice Shelf. Its perfectly rectangular shape and flat surface sparked the interest of many online, but its form is one that is more common than one might expect. Unlike the recognizable pyramid-shaped icebergs, tabular icebergs split from the edges of ice shelves when they become too brittle. In 2017 an iceberg the size of Delaware broke off of the same arctic ice shelf. The iceberg weighed over a trillion tons, and was one of the largest ever recorded.

The recent image of the tabular iceberg was taken as a part of Operation IceBridge, NASA’s extensive survey of Earth’s Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves, and sea ice. You can see the edge of the perfectly formed tabular iceberg in addition to a slightly less rectangular example in the image taken by IceBridge senior support scientist Jeremy Harbeck below. A GIF of a plane from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center approaching the iceberg can be viewed their Twitter. (via NASA ICE)

Photography

The Diverse and Rugged Beauty of Nordic Glaciers and Icebergs Captured by Jan Erik Waider

Photographer Jan Erik Waider (previously) splits his time between Hamburg, Germany and traveling through the harsh and unpredictable climate of Nordic countries like Greenland, Iceland, and Norway. In each of these locations Waider seeks the most remote and hidden locations, wishing to present rarely seen perspectives of the native landscape to a larger audience. For more than a decade he has captured the monumental beauty of northern glaciers, isolating their color and shape in a way that makes the icy cliffs appear almost extraterrestrial.

In one ongoing series titled Remnants, Waider finds abandoned pieces of icebergs that lay like “stranded whales” on Iceland’s south coast. “Powerful waves wash around them and drag them further ashore, after they drifted aimlessly in the sheltered lagoon for months,” he explains. “The colors tell stories about age and density, and they speak of the history of the volcanoes that let black ash rain down and darkened the skies.”

Waider offers prints of his personal photographs on his website. You can view more images from his northern expeditions on Instagram, Twitter, and Behance.

Art

Monumental Pastel Drawings of Endangered Icebergs by Zaria Forman

Zaria Forman (previously here and here) creates incredibly realistic drawings of Antarctica’s icebergs, producing large pastel works that capture the sculptural beauty of the quickly shrinking forms. This past winter, the artist had the opportunity to be side-by-side with the the towering ice shelfs, observing their magnitude aboard the National Geographic Explorer during a four week art residency.

The residency gave her the opportunity to further embody the natural formations, providing a new perspective to create her large-scale drawings.

“Many of us are intellectually aware that climate change is our greatest global challenge, and yet the problem may feel abstract, the imperiled landscapes remote,” says Forman. “I hope my drawings make Antarctica’s fragility visceral to the viewer, emulating the overpowering experience of being beside a glacier.”

Forman has a solo exhibition of her work titled Antarctica opening at Winston Wächter gallery in Seattle on September 9 and running through November 4, 2017. You can watch a timelapse of Forman completing her drawing Whale Bay, Antarctica no.4  in the video below. (via Juxtapoz)

Art

New ‘Eco-Surrealist’ Paintings by Josh Keyes Observe a Post-Human World

Josh Keyes (previously) paints scenes that observe the world at the brink of destruction. His works often focus on polar bears and sharks, one species which will soon lose its home as ice shelves continue to melt, and the other which is poised to take over an Earth undersea. The animals are placed in settings that suggest a post-human existence, such as a pair of fighting horses in front of a beached ship and a solitary brown bear looking over a seemingly empty metropolis.

The hyperrealistic paintings also incorporate graffiti found in unlikely places. Tags cover satellites, icebergs, and even a shark, an allusion to the lengths at which humans are willing to leave their mark.

Keyes’ solo exhibition, Implosion, opens August 5th at Thinkspace Gallery in LA and runs through August 26, 2017. You can see more of his works on his Instagram and website. (via Juxtapoz, Arrested Motion)

Colossal

Colossal x Josh Keyes Print Release: I’ll Melt With You

We are honored to have worked with Portland-based painter Josh Keyes on an exclusive release of the print edition of his 2016 painting, “I’ll Melt With You,” available now in The Colossal Shop.

Keyes’ ability to paint realistic renderings of our world becomes uncanny when he wields his brush in the name of environmental issues. Animals, rocket ships, and icebergs fall prey to graffiti, leaving the viewer uncomfortably wondering whether this is a painting of the future or a photograph of the present.

“I’ll Melt With You,” originally painted in acrylic on a 12 x 16 inch panel is translated to print form in its full dimensions, with an additional white border for convenient framing, for a final size of 16 x 20 inches. Printed by our friends at ioLabs in Rhode Island on Epson Hot Press Bright 300 gsm archival paper and available exclusively in The Colossal Shop.