“My camera is a tool for science communication”

Did having a purpose come first for you, with photography as the way to express it?

Originally, I wanted to be a book illustrator, telling stories by drawing them, but I was afraid to go down that path. And when I got my very first camera, which was a Nikon Coolpix, I realised that I could tell stories in a visual way with photography.

You were drawn to the polar regions. Why have they become so special to you?

I went to the Arctic Ocean for the first time in 2015, and I knew then that this was exactly what I wanted to dedicate my photography to. I wanted to work with scientists, to tell their stories and stories of climate change, and my camera is really a tool for science communication.

What do you think photography can achieve that other forms of communication can’t?

We remember everything in pictures. Without photography, we would know so much less about the world around us. History, too, since the invention of the camera, has been told through photography. I recently watched the movie about Lee Miller and it was fantastic. Without her and other photographers capturing that part of history we would know so little.

When you’re on assignment, do you consider yourself an observer or a participant, or a bit of both?

I always want to be an observer. I want to tell the stories of the scientists, showing facts, the kind of research they do, the results, but from an observer’s point of view. But I’m very passionate about the science itself and how it is done. Climate change doesn’t happen in a day. To understand it, we need long term observations, and the dedication of the people who do this is what really fascinates me.

Your latest trip to Svalbard was about cleaning up waste that endangers animals. How was that experience?

It was really inspiring and also heartbreaking. The people who clean up on the island are all volunteers who give up their time. The most difficult thing was seeing dead or dying reindeers caught in fishing nets, which are a huge problem. If a fishing net gets to the shore, it’s almost guaranteed that a reindeer will be caught up in it. We found lots of reindeer in the ten days I was there.

How did this trip differ from your other work?

It was the first time I had been in the Arctic in summer. In fact, this year I spent about two-and-a-half months in 24-hour daylight. Seeing Svalbard green and with no snow was a very different landscape.

What equipment did you use for this project?

I had my new favourite: the Nikon Z8. I had two Z8s, one with the NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S and the other with the NIKKOR Z 70-200mm f/2.8 S. I also took a tripod for occasional video or portraits and a light. It was physically very tiring. We walked a lot, collected a lot of trash and, of course, I also had my equipment to carry. But it was a nice feeling doing something for the planet.

You’ve documented a lot of change in the polar regions in your work over the last decade...

I regularly go to a particular research station that has a glacier nearby and it has retreated 4km in the last 25 years, two of those kilometres in the last five or six years. I’ve seen it retreat with my own eyes and it’s really shocking.

Do you think it’s harder for photography to have the same sort of impact today that people like Lee Miller and Robert Capa had in the 20th century?

It’s a different time. I get asked, “Aren’t you afraid that so many people have a camera, a phone and that everyone is a photographer?” My answer is that I think about the scientists I meet. I can go out and take snow samples, but I have no idea what to do with them – how to make a scientific paper out of those samples, how to bring it to the journals. This is what I think about photography. Yes, there are so many people taking pictures, but the pictures must have a certain quality and the photographer has to know how to bring them to the magazines, to exhibitions, to a higher platform, where they can have power.