Our Beautiful, Fragile World: The Nature and Environmental Photographs of Peter Essick
Peter Essick
Language: English
Pages: 124
ISBN: 1937538346
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Our Beautiful, Fragile World features a career-spanning look at the images of photojournalist Peter Essick taken while on assignment for National Geographic magazine. In this book, Essick showcases a diverse series of photographs from some of the most beautiful natural areas in the world and documents major contemporary environmental issues, such as climate change and nuclear waste.
Each photograph is accompanied by commentary on the design process of the image, Essick's personal photographic experiences, and informative highlights from the research he completed for each story. Our Beautiful, Fragile World takes the reader on a journey around the globe, from the Oulanka National Park near the Arctic Circle in Finland to the Adelie penguin breeding grounds in Antarctica.
Our Beautiful, Fragile World will interest photographers of all skill levels. It carries an important message about conservation, and the photographs provide a compelling look at our environment that will resonate with people of all ages who care about the state of the natural world.
Foreword by Jean-Michel Cousteau.
for the article on climate change, I could only afford to spend 3–4 days photographing his work. I looked into flying from Argentina to Palmer Station, but the closest thing to an airstrip is a flat area atop the glacier next to the station that a plane could land on, which would be used only if it were necessary to make an emergency evacuation. My only hope of getting to Palmer Station was to hire a yacht for a five-day sail across the Drake Passage to Antarctica. I contacted a Swiss man with a
nearby waiting out the rain, and I think most of them wondered what I was photographing. I’m sure they would have been shocked if I told them I was from National Geographic. They would probably have been even more surprised that the photo of the parking lot was actually published in the magazine. We tend to think of outdoor photography as something we do on vacation to record a person or place that is unusual. There are the many scenic overlooks that are photographed over and over, either alone
city, but with the unusual shapes of the trees in the foreground. I had to climb around quite a bit to find 12 Kenroku-en Gardens, Kanazawa, Japan, 1994 Nikon F4, 50mm lens, Fujichrome 100, 1/125 second at f4 an angle where the trees were silhouetted against the lights of the city. It was snowing heavily and although it was darker than on a bright sunny day, I always prefer to photograph in conditions like this that give a strong mood to the photograph. 22 Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona, 1997 Canon
Colorado River in 1996. In March, the floodgates of Glen Canyon Dam upstream were intentionally opened wide for seven days. The idea was to simulate the annual flooding that used to happen every spring before the dam was built. The Colorado River carries a big load of sediment that builds up the beaches in the Grand Canyon. The river rafting companies had noticed that since the dam was built in 1962, the beaches had been slowly eroding away, leaving little room for the rafters to camp. But there
were other unforeseen environmental effects downstream from the dam that were more significant than inconvenienced rafters. The post-dam banks had become filled with exotic tamarisks and native willows that were growing closer in to the river than was ever possible during the time of annual floods. This riparian vegetation teems with insects; the insects draw birds, which are preyed on by peregrine falcons. The native humpback trout that favors the silty waters is now outnumbered by rainbow