Environmental photographer James Balog and film director Jeff Orlowski took it upon themselves to give climate change non-believers the proof they need to finally join the green troops. Their new film “Chasing Ice” demonstrates the excitement and challenges of capturing glacial retreat.
In the wake of human activity is a wreckage of planetary change and destruction. This is crucial time in planetary health and history; however, activism is somehow subdued all over the country by people who adamantly refuse to believe that climate change exists. These non-believers look past the natural disasters of recent years, the rapid extinction of animals, and many other environmental indicators, and instead make snowballs to present in political forums as proof that global warming is a fallacy.
In 2007, Balog began to use time-lapse photography techniques to capture images of glaciers as they receded due to global warming. Balog said that glaciers respond profoundly to the weather around them. “When it’s warmer,” Balog said. “They start sliding. When it’s colder, they cuddle up and settle down.”
Because of the changes in weather, it took long periods of time, advanced technology, and many mishaps along the way to capture the devastating receding patterns of the glaciers. The hard-won result is visually compelling to anyone concerned about this planet’s health and stability.
The images taken by Balog capture the complexity of ice and the ways that it bends to the forces of light, wind and time.
“Ice is actually a plastic substance,” said Balog.“It can bend and flex like taffy does.”
This taffy-like effect is very much visible in the time-lapse photography, and as we see the ice stretch and sparkle and recede, the frozen elements take on an almost personified narrative that makes it easy to sympathize with the desire to protect these struggling landscapes.
This poignant narrative is exactly what Balog had in mind when he pursued this cinematic mission. He said that he wanted to “hear the story of nature,” a desire that shines through in the film. The film would still have been compelling even without the story of Balog and his assistants as they struggled to capture the moments we see in the “ice-scapes.” The ice really does seem to tell its own story, and we witness its narrative of struggle and perseverance throughout the film.
The story behind the characters that made the film, however, is an important part of the impact it has on its audience. The film took five years to complete, and audiences witness challenges as Balog used sheer obstinacy to continue filming on crutches after knee surgery. The crew faces the harsh temperatures and other conditions that made filming and surviving in a glacial landscape at times nearly impossible. There is even one devastating moment when Balog and the crew discover that a time-lapse camera had been broken for an entire season, but they continue on and capture some incredible images along the way.
Balog called glaciers a “three-dimensional manifestation of the atmosphere.” With this idea in mind, he has used an accessible and obvious medium to show the world how profoundly climate change is affecting our planet.
Today, Balog has an established organization that continues to track the recession of glaciers with time lapse-photography, called “The Extreme Ice Survey.” Currently, the survey has 34 cameras on 16 glaciers in Iceland, Greenland, Montana, Canada, Alaska, and Nepal. Every half hour, they capture another photograph, one of a million images that have been compiled since 2007. The film has been given to every senator and congressman in Washington as one of many strategies to spread awareness into influential circles and will hopefully continue to convince audience members of the importance of environmental activism through its profound visual impact.