When I became a photographer, I wanted to celebrate the beauty of nature.
But then I realized that there was something more complex in the world, about the clash between humans and nature.
And I felt a strong need to tell this.
These events are part of the fabric and history of our times.
«I’ve seen how burning coal, oil, and natural gas cooks the air we breathe. I’ve seen how that altered atmosphere heats our forests until they explode in fireballs, and homes burn down. I’ve seen, through more than a million frames of time-lapse photography, how trillions of tons of glacier ice are melting. And I’ve seen that meltwater enter the seas and flood the world’s coastlines». —James Balog, Earth Day Speech, Washington Mall, April 22, 2017
For four decades, James Balog has repeatedly broken new creative ground on the relationship between humanity and the rest of nature. His talent is photographing and filming this intersection in ways that not only seduce viewers through his rich imagery, but also evoke questions about what is happening in our world—and why. Altogether, his work shapes a new and more sustainable vision of what the future can be in this brave new world of the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans.