The Telegraph goes full stupid with this headline. The craziness is that this photo essay has to be done every year, a point apparently lost on both the Telegraph and the photographer.
And one wonders, does she realize that before 2003, icebergs existed? It’s a thought of Titanic proportions.
Too bad nobody got photos in 1922.
Oh, and that famous Mawson expedition repeat, iced out. Oh, the ironing.
h/t to reader J Orendorff
Camille Seaman says:
December 22, 2011 at 11:03 pm
Perhaps you don’t realise how much the AGW alarmist type scam and headline use has affected our world either? Seriously, there has been far too much BS on the subject and media propaganda – and, moreover, a large number of bandwagon jumpers. It would be nice to think that you may not be one of those, but sadly, skepticism runs deep, especially after all the BS we have had to wade through. FYI, a good majority of skeptics are former believers – but took the time to investigate, rather than simply to rely on media peddled ‘stories’ and ‘headlines’. The majority of skeptics look only at the science, not the belief……Hence, the skepticism you endure is not necessarily personal, just an almost automatic response to such things as a title ‘The Last Iceberg’ !
Same can be said for the photoshopping – all the many false images produced have resulted in a natural skepticism of any image (think of adverts!)! Granted it’s not your fault, but thats the way it is! Please accept that people do not like those that cry wolf too often and it reflects (unfortunately) on genuine folk too! Your annoyance could also be directed at those who have created this situation, rather than ‘us’, who have simply been forced down the skeptical route…we are not nasty folk, just not very trusting!
“As for the photoshop comments. Travel with me and see for yourself, the amazing colors that exist without any manipulation required.
Sincerely, Camille”
From her FAQ on her own website: I do very little to my images. In fact not much at all beyond Burning and Dodging (making areas darker or lighter). I sharpen and thats about it. I use NC film because it gives a true neutral color without over saturating the color; I sometimes de-saturate to be as true to what I felt I saw as possible.
Burning, dodging and de-saturation is image manipulation. Before uttering an absolute you should check yourself to make sure it is correct.
Deborah December 23, 2011 at 8:09 pm
You may just want to read that statement once again, Deborah, adn think about what she says:
Travel with me and see for yourself, the amazing colors that exist without any manipulation required.
Sincerely, Camille
Your obvious disdain for the sources of criticism is ill conceived. There are at the very least one or more of us who have seen and been to the Arctic and/or the Antarctic in addition to many other exotic locales around the Earth. I’m a former Air Force meteorologist who served in the Cold War era, when we conducted operations in the Arctic and Antarctic. Willis Eschenbach is an adventurer and sailor with experiences no less death defying than those of Steve McCurry or Paul Fusco. He can regale you with stories ranging from the Gulf of Alaska to New Guinea. Other contributors in this forum have their own remarkable life stories in odd places and tumultuous circumstances. So, any efforts you might make to trump this forum’s commentary upon a basis of greater experience is not going to work out very well at all.
You’ve taken the first step towards engaging in a dialogue by posting a comment in this forum. Unfortunately, in your very understandable desire and effort to protest some of the more egregiously inaccurate comments, you have contributed your own misconceptions to the debate, such as deprecating the anonymity and potential experience of the commentators and contributors. Some commentators need to post anonymously, because the proponents of the Climate Change political movement censor discriminate against, will not hire, and will fire anyone who disagrees with them. If you’ll spend some time in the forum, get to know the participants and their backgrounds, and use Sturgeon’s Law to sift the comments, you’ll likely discover these people have an extraordinary ability to contribute insights and research to science and the community. Far from hiding behind a keyboard, many of these people are on the frontlines of discovery and service to the community, with and without anonymity.
Given the general background of your work, the titles you selected, and your artist statements, you have created an impression, accurate or inaccurate, that you are supportive or even a promoter of the “Climate Change” political movement. Consequently, the seasoned participants in this forum are going to tend to be doubtful until proven otherwise when you say “ I welcome a dialogue,” because so many prior supporters of the Climate Change political movement ultimately did not welcome such a dialogue at all. Instead, they simply propagandized and left the forum without being responsive to the debate. You’ll earn respect by being constructively responsive to criticism, and demonstrating respect towards the commentators, especially when they get something wrong and apologize.
For what it is worth or not, you may want to take heed and understand how your attempt to be “an artist” with your titles and commentary has communicated, unintentionally or not, a presumptuousness and false apprehension of what other people do and do not appreciate about “this planet.” You do not need to “mention climate change or global warming” to promote them with your commentaries about your work. The choices you make in phrasing can communicate an attitude.. The phrasing “if you could step away from your electronic devices long enough you might actually appreciate this planet” was especially offensive in the way it implies and/or assumes your critics do not and have not been away from electronic devices and keyboards “long enough you might actually appreciate this planet.” To set the record straight, you are talking at some people who were traveling around and appreciating the planet long before you were born. Many of these people appreciated the planet and its raw beauty when a telephone on a party line at the drug store in and American town with a two digit telephone number and a named exchange. Computers were just being invented and delivered in their first dozens, and their electronic circuits used vacuum tubes and plugboard programming. You have made some very fine images. It is very unfortunate that you did not let the images speak thousands of words for themselves and in their true context, rather than attempt to impose your own interpretation with text which some critics could be accurate in finding were inconsistent with reality.
Without taking a position for or against your participating in eco-tourism in the polar regions, don’t you think it is perhaps a bit over the top in hypocrisy at first glance for people who champion conservation of what are claimed to be a fragile ecology and melting sea ice vital to the survival of the planet’s biosphere to then use icebreakers to smash that sea ice on a regular basis for tourists who want to do what they love? You do know how polynya form and what their effect is upon seawater temperatures and formation of open waters in the sea ice? You have to admit the contradictions, apparent or real, inherent in the what you say invite comment, do they not?
The critical commentators were not necessarily saying they wanted you to stop you from doing some very fine photography or exercising free speech. Neither do they want you and/or any promoters of the Climate Change political movement to censor their free speech, tax their property, forcibly indoctrinate their children in government schools, or otherwise stop them from doing the legitimate and reasonable things they love to do, including living and breathing free of a socialist Green genocide dwarfing Mao’s Cultural Revolution. If they happen to perceive or suspect that you use your fine photography to promote a political movement they suspect may be akin to genocides killing tens of millions of human beings, are you really going to fault them for their concerns, or allay their concerns? It comes down to what you as an artist wish to communicate and how well you communicate it.
Take for example your artist’s statement about The Last Iceberg: “These images were made in both the Arctic regions of Svalbard, Greenland, and Antarctica.” Your statement is inaccurate, because your inclusion of Antarctica and an Arctic region is factually wrong. The Arctic is only a geographic region at the Earth’s northern axial pole, while the Antarctic is located at the Earth’s southern axial pole. The Arctic is so named because it is derived from the stellar constellations at the northern pole, Ursus Major and Ursus Minor. The etymology of Arctic comes from Ursus at the northern pole. By definition, the Antarctic is the exact opposite of the Arctic. Again, the photography is beautiful on its own merits. Don’t be surprised if and when your statements communicate something which is at odds with and detracts from the merits of the photography.
Yes, the colors can be quite amazing by eyeball, film, or digital sensor. Nonetheless, the public has been hoodwinked so many times with a Photoshop edited polar bear on an ice floe, flooded housing, and so much more, you can’t blame them for at least being suspicious. I always thought it was incredible that Greenland actually appeared to be green at times, as we flew over the mountains and above the glaciers. You would get a high pressure air mass over the area, clearing the clouds away. The winds scoured snow from areas of the ice, and the sunshine shone back from from the ice with an aqua green color, making the continent truly a Greenland. Somehow, I was never able to get an opportunity to properly photograph it, being in an aircraft. It would still make an interesting picture.
I like the contrast range you succeeded in capturing from the icebergs, as much as or more than the magnificent blues you captured. It would be interesting to see how much of that translated onto paper in my Epson 9800 and 7800 printers.
Don’t you think “everyone is against us” when everyone makes us pay income taxes? After all, don’t you realize almost no one paid income taxes before Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Administration? You’re not paranoid when people really are out to get your money, and perhaps you (s).
This guy’s similar, as a go-to guy for multimedia presentations in the “crusade against climate change.” I noticed him at a photography master class and he gave his website, so I visited and found stuff like this:
http://timmatsui.photoshelter.com/gallery/Kivalina-AK-Native-Village-Sues-Oil-Companies-for-Climate-Change/G0000hifxiQYSVRg/
So many otherwise fine people with creative minds and artistic vision are taken in by the NGO gravy train. The wonderful photographer and writer David Duchemin is another that comes to mind. What a waste!
It’s good to see that most of the comments here refrain from attacking the photographer directly, instead pointing to the editorial slant of the coverage linked. As she pointed out, Seaman does not explicitly mention “global warming” or “climate change” on her site, although having been so conditioned by the constant bombardment of the media, government agencies and schools, the reader’s mind will likely drift in that direction and make related associations.
Camille shoots a wide format Fuji, a Rolleiflex, and Leicas with Kodak film. I like her for that. Hope she will be able to match the colour curve of the new Portra films to the Portra NC stock she is used to working with. I hope Kodak film will remain available for decades to come.
The actual associations are more direct than you know.
Sadly, Kodak is fading away before our eyes. Shares of Kodak were trading on the stock market last year in the $4.00 range. This year Kodak shares are trading less than $1.00 and has gone down to less than half of a dollar. Kodak is now a pennystock, and financial analysts are concerned about the company’s continued survival and potential for bankruptcy in 2012. Other analysts dismiss the potential for bankruptcy and cite a multi-billion dollar portfolio of patents as the reason why Kodak should escape bankruptcy in 2012. Nonetheless, there are expressions of concern in the financial media for Kodak’s ability to remain listed on the stock exchanges. As camera stores and film processors close their doors and go out of business, Kodak continues to lose sales revenue from those former customers. Photographers still using large format, medium format, and 35mm format film are finding increasingly difficult to maintain relationships with local professional laboratories. The nearest camera store stocking large format and medium format film is now more than sixty miles away, and they have it only because they are among the largest camera stores catering to professionals.
The large professional film scanners are the next threatened technology.
It’s beginning to look like Camille’s “I welcome a dialogue” statement may have amounted to no more than a rhetorical flourish?
It would have been interesting to discuss the influence a Blue Earth Alliance photographer has upon the current state of the science.
D. Patterson says:
December 26, 2011 at 3:33 am
As a member of the I Shoot Film group on Flickr we discuss related issues all the time. The next domino to fall could likely be movie film, since theaters already use digital projectors and a whole crop of younger movie makers has never worked extensively with film. I rue the day film goes away, if not simply because the older cameras are still so wonderful. Electronically-controlled digital cameras with electronic brains are less “sustainable” than a solid, mechanical film camera.
All that’s off topic, but it would sure be nice to have Camille turn that cameo into a real visit and discussion by returning.
As a member of the I Shoot Film group on Flickr we discuss related issues all the time. The next domino to fall could likely be movie film, since theaters already use digital projectors and a whole crop of younger movie makers has never worked extensively with film. I rue the day film goes away, if not simply because the older cameras are still so wonderful. Electronically-controlled digital cameras with electronic brains are less “sustainable” than a solid, mechanical film camera.
All that’s off topic, but it would sure be nice to have Camille turn that cameo into a real visit and discussion by returning.
I wouldn’t say it is entirely off topic, because of the impact the Climate Change political movement is having upon Photography and Cinematography. A lot of photographers doing their own darkroom work have been running into the controversies surrounding the disposal of their chemistries. In an EPA report in 1994, they were discussing their grand plans for central planning of the entire photofinishing industry, including amateurs. They duscussed how they really did not want to acknowledge the industry experts findings that the silver coming from the silver halide processes presented no harm to human health.
United States Environmental Protection Agency; Policy, Planning, and Evaluation (2125). Sustainable Industry: Promoting Strategic Environmental Protection in the Industrial Sector. Phase 1 Report. Photoimaging Industry. EPA-230-R-94-007, jUNE 1994
I agree about the electronic cameras being more problematic in some respects. The inability to invest in a comprehensive system of expensive lenses and expect to use them with the next generation of camera bodies is of special concern. I reinvested and reacquired a large number of the Minolta manual focus cameras because I’ve always loved using them (SR-T, XK, XE-7….) and because of the lens KIT I put together over the years from the 7.5mm fisheye to the 1600mm mirror telephoto. I haven’t had anywhere near enough opportunity to shoot my Graflex 4×5 the way I wanted. Now I have to worry whether or not the fillm availability will last longer than I and my photography will.
I really enjoy my Knoica Minolta and Sony DSLR cameras for their wonderful color and contrast range, but they are more limited in handling and lens choices in some respects which annoy. In fact, the automated features just seem to get in the way at times. I was photographing a B-17 making passes over the runway, and I had to fight the lens focusing system which didn’t like the guy wires and a post in the field of view. I was also using a good old-fashioned manual focus 100-500mm zoom as well, and breathed a sigh of relief when I shifted to it and got the shots I wanted and was missing medling with the autofocus-manual focus features of the DSLRs.
It gets irritating at times to see the youngsters playing with the Red One and taking the 4K cinematography and non-linear editing capabilities so much for granted. Naturally, they don’t want to hear about what we had to sacirifce just for opportunity to shoot a Bolex 16mm production or an Arriflex 35mm production. Now I have reels of original Hollywood motion picture and television camera film negatives, and none of the universities or other organizations will admit to having the facilities to inspect the film properly.
Another aspect of the Climate Change poliitical movement’s impact upon Photography and Cinematography is their domination of the markets. When you look at the publications that are using Camille’s works, they are overwhelmingly dominated by publications touting their commitment to combating Climate Change, Global Warming, and so many other projects heartwarming to such political groups. You have to wonder how much of the current publications market would be open to a photographer with a reputaton as a Skeptic of the Climate Change political movement? There have already been major producers and distributors in Hollywood who have made statements to the effect they would never knowingly allow any of their projects to hire a Republican or conservative. They made it very clear it was a closed shop to anyone who didn’t meet their criteria for political loyalty. So, what publications are still receptive to photographers who don’t want their works used to promote the Climate Change and similar political agendas?