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Stark Black and White Images Seize Life in a Melting Arctic

Ragnar Axelsson is an Icelandic photographer who has been working within the frigid Arctic for over 40 years and documenting breathtaking imagery of the desolate panorama and its folks.

Axelsson’s stark black and white photographs doc the difficult lifetime of people and their sled canines in numerous international locations of the Arctic and its excessive setting.

In current occasions, unprecedented local weather change has made this area extra opposed for people and wildlife, with worse to return from extreme carbon consumption far, far-off from their tiny villages — one thing they don’t have any management over. This has made Axelsson extra involved about documenting the adjustments.

Mechanical Movie Cameras Don’t Simply Cease within the Winter

“The primary years [of photography] had been all on movie, and I nonetheless use movie cameras along with digital cameras,” says Rax, as his mates name him. “I exploit digital extra at this time because it has glorious high quality recordsdata.

“I really like photographing on movie cameras, and typically they take over when the batteries are drained within the chilly. What has modified in my pictures is realizing increasingly more how vital it’s to doc life in Arctic international locations. Images can considerably affect folks and have opened folks’s eyes earlier than and can proceed to take action sooner or later.”

sled dog

The Pleasure of Black and White Images

Axelsson (b. 1958) enjoys photographing in black and white as he grew up within the darkroom in his home. There’s a particular second when {a photograph} involves life in a darkroom, though the true magical second is when the shutter freezes a second in life endlessly. Black and white pictures, he believes, leaves one thing behind for the creativeness.

The photographer presently shoots with a Leica M10 monochrome and has used monochrome Leicas for some years. His different digital camera is the Leica SL (Typ 601) alongside lenses from 21mm to 90mm. He hardly makes use of lengthy lenses.

Axelsson has additionally photographed in Latvia, Lithuania, Mozambique, South Africa, China, and Ukraine, working as a photojournalist at Morgunblaðið (1976 – 2020), an Icelandic newspaper.

“It was difficult to {photograph} in Latvia, Lithuania once I was there,” remembers the lensman who has revealed eight photograph books in numerous worldwide editions. “It was within the circumstances the place there was a risk of being shot. The Arctic is a battle with the intense chilly, and the one battle is to combat that chilly and watch out. Nature will be unforgiving.

“I made a decision to {photograph} the Arctic after having been in Africa and considering, oh, each photographer on the planet is right here taking the identical {photograph}. I’ve to go some other place, and I began doing so almost 40 years in the past, and also you begin loving the Arctic international locations and the chilly.

“Life within the Arctic would be the greatest concern on the planet in coming years. It needs to be proven to the world, and I hope to open folks’s eyes to the drastic adjustments affecting every part on our planet.”

Inspiration From Different Photographers

“Many nice photographers have impressed me all through the years,” Axelsson says. “W. Eugene Smith is considered one of them, Henry Cartier-Bresson,  Don McCullin, Mary Ellen Mark, to call a number of. All of them did nice issues that opened folks’s eyes to life on our planet. It’s important to do this greater than ever.”

Photographer Mary Ellen Mark wrote the foreword to Axelsson’s ebook, Faces of the North, which captured about 100 austere, highly effective photos of Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, taken over twenty years.

“Mary Ellen was an important lady,” remembers Rax. “She passed away in 2015 and is unfortunately missed. Mary Ellen was an important inspiration to my pictures, an important buddy, and one of many biggest photographers of all time. I used to be in her workshop in 1985, the place we met for the primary time and have become shut mates.”

Preserving the Heritage of 1000’s of Years

In some cities, residents have changed their animal skins with Gore-Tex clothes, snowmobiles for canine sleds even rifles for conventional harpoons.

“It makes it simpler for them,” says the inveterate photograph explorer. “In some villages in Greenland, like in Thule [old name for Qaanaaq], they nonetheless use conventional pores and skin garments and use dogsled and kayaks. They need to maintain their heritage alive. How lengthy that may final, nobody is aware of.”

Why do a number of the natives nonetheless desire sled canines to snowmobiles?

“The dogsled by no means fails,” explains Axelsson. “Snow automobiles can go quick and journey an extended distance in a short while. It’s a lengthy stroll again to security in extraordinarily chilly situations if one thing [mechanical failure] occurs. The canines by no means fail, and if they’ve executed a route as soon as, they know their means again dwelling [even in the worst of visibility and weather].”

Axelsson’s photograph ebook Arctic Heroes: A Tribute to the Sled Dogs of Greenland is a celebration of the locals’ finest buddy. It is a time when the melting ice sheet is disrupting an over 8,000-year previous (that’s how lengthy sled dogs are believed to have existed) conventional life-style of the Inuits, the indigenous peoples inhabiting the freezing areas of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska.

The Arctic heroes, in my thoughts, are the hunters and the canines and the folks residing above the Arctic Circle. Their life is altering due to melting sea ice. The ebook we did was a tribute to the sled canine, which is declining, and the hunters. There have been 30,000 canines ten years in the past; now, they’re 11,000. The hunter and his canine are actual Arctic heroes who’ve been combating the weather to outlive for a whole bunch of years. There are extra Arctic Heroes residing above the Arctic Circle in all of the 8 Arctic international locations. — Ragnar Axelsson

The Dangers of Photographing in Excessive Chilly

Adjusting digital camera dials is at all times tough with gloves on, and final winter Axelsson eliminated his gloves briefly to make a digital camera adjustment — a grave mistake that the photographer continues to be paying for.

“My proper thumb is OK, [but] it’s numb, and I’ve to watch out when under zero,” he says. “It hurts a bit day by day, however I get used to it. It simply froze [and turned black] on the ocean ice in Thule once I was photographing in extraordinarily chilly climate and robust wind. It was my stupidity within the pleasure of getting {a photograph} of a hunter on the ocean ice, the solar was going beneath, and darkness took over. It was a battle getting again dwelling within the storm.”

Polar winters are dreary with twenty-four-hour darkness. It is just when the aurora borealis is dancing within the sky that it lights up a bit of bit, and pictures for Rax kicks in.

There may be an ongoing 3-year mission to do a ebook of all 8 Arctic international locations, though COVID has slowed it down. In March, the photographer, raised on an remoted farm in southern Iceland, goes to Siberia and can end all his journey within the subsequent two years.

Axelsson is optimistic in regards to the future however significantly frightened on the identical time.

“Important adjustments are occurring within the Arctic international locations; the ocean ice isn’t as secure because it was once,” laments Axelsson. “Searching communities are closing down. Hunters are getting fewer and fewer, and conventional searching is declining.

“The younger era isn’t specializing in being hunters; they may stay a unique life sooner or later,” Axelsson says. “The tundra is thawing, and there is likely to be drastic adjustments in years to return. It is very important doc life on our planet, and all eyes will probably be within the Arctic within the coming years. Individuals who stay there have an opportunity to outlive in concord with nature.”

You possibly can watch Axelsson’s interactive present Where the World is Melting happening on the Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung (an arts basis) in Munich. You too can discover extra of his work on his website and Instagram.


In regards to the writer: Phil Mistry is a photographer and trainer primarily based in Atlanta, GA. He began one of many first digital digital camera courses in New York Metropolis at The International Center of Photography within the 90s. He was the director and trainer for Sony/Well-liked Images journal’s Digital Days Workshops. You possibly can attain him here.


Picture credit: All photographs by Ragnar Axelsson

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