Camille Seaman presents The Last Iceberg

This work is one piece of a larger project entitled Melting Away, which documents the Polar Regions, their environments, life forms and the communities that live and work there. The Last Iceberg chronicles just a handful of the many thousands of icebergs that are currently headed to their end. They were taken in the Arctic regions of Svalbard, Greenland, Iceland and Antarctica.

 

Camille Seaman is an award-winning American Photographer, best known for her evocative Polar images. On icebergs, Camille says she approaches her images as portraits of individuals: ‘I seek a moment in their life in which they convey their unique personality, some connection to our own experience and a glimpse of their soul which endures.’

 

Camille has been photographing the Polar Regions for about ten years. It all started rather serendipitously when her flight form San Francisco to La was over booked and she was offered a free return flight if she would give up her seat. As it was Alaskan Airlines she decided to fly to Alaska. After getting over the cold - something she wasn’t really prepared for, she fell in love with the place, and has been to a polar region every year since. Now she says she gets withdrawal symptoms if she doesn’t go. Not that there's much chance of that, she's off as Photographer in Residence on a ship going to Greenland for August and September.

 

The photographs of the icebergs do look amazing, the shapes and the colours beautiful. Camille was telling me that an over cast sky makes the best conditions to bring out the blue/green colours and the textures and patterns. In the sunlight they just look white!
 

The dark seas you get on an overcast day, also makes a great backdrop for these fantastic natural sculptures. I really like the idea that every shot is unique and can never be repeated, although they can look big and powerful, they are all ultimately doomed.

 

All the prints are for sale as limited editions of 9 from £500 to £4500 plus vat. Viewing the pictures is free, see the Hoopers Gallery website for more information.

 

This exhibition planted an idea in my mind to visit Antarctica and on returning home I goolged ‘travelling to Antarctica’, it looks really interesting. Maybe going to this exhibition could be the kick start of your polar adventure.