In 2022, the award-winning photographer Lukasz Larsson spent three weeks on Greenland’s ice sheet with researchers from the East Greenland Ice-Core Project (EastGRIP). During his stay, he documented life at the camp and learnt all about drilling, processing and analysing ice cores to better understand past climate events and forecast future ones.
In this interview he describes his unique experience and how it has fuelled his passion to communicate scientific research to wider audiences through visual storytelling.
How did the collaboration with EastGRIP project researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute come about?
Lukasz Larsson: I trained as a commercial photographer over two decades ago. During the COVID 19 pandemic, I had a lot of time to think and I realised I was growing out of commercial photography. I was keen for my work to have more meaning. Together with my wife, Ulrika, who is also a photographer, we started looking for projects that we could apply our skills to.
I have a lot of experience with outdoor photography in challenging conditions, so we started looking into polar research. The Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen is only a couple of hours away from where we live, so my wife approached the Centre’s leader, Prof. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen. After a 40-minute telephone conversation, she agreed for me to join them on their next 3-week field trip. This was a real privilege – no other media person had ever stayed at the camp for this long – and slightly daunting. Once that plane takes off, there is no going back.
Can you tell us a bit more about your day-to-day experience of living on the camp? How did the scientists receive you?
Lukasz Larsson: The project participants have been coming together at the camp since 2015, so they all know each other very well. I think it is fair to say that at the beginning I was met with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. However, I soon got into the rhythm of the camp and became one of the team, taking part in day-to-day chores. The fact I was there as a storyteller, to help communicate the science rather than report on it, helped build trust.
I was assigned a desk in the open plan area and as soon as I had taken the first images, I set up a permanent slide show as a screen saver. Everyone could see what I was doing; it was a great way to break the ice, no pun intended!
During my time there I was able to capture a birthday party and people waking up in the tents; intimate moments that a 3-day media visit would not have allowed. I sensed they felt that bringing me in was a bit of a gamble, but it worked out! We had a wonderful time.
What did you find most interesting about this research?
Lukasz Larsson: There are so many interesting facets to this work: the process of drilling and analysing the ice cores to understand climate change, the passion of the people doing this work…
Prof. Steffensen was very generous with his time, he explained how the ice cores not just document the Earth’s climate history, but also the history of humanity. It was only after I got back, that I decided to explore this idea further and attempt to identify key events in ice core samples stored in the ice core library at the Niels Bohr Institute. This is how the idea for the feature story in National Geographic came about.
With Steffensen’s help, my wife and I managed to photograph the ice cores containing the ash of the volcanic eruption that led to years of food instability in Europe and set the stage for the French Revolution, and the snow of the first Christmas. We really enjoyed the challenge of photographing the ice cores in a way that people would find it interesting.
What are you aiming to get across through your images? What do you hope viewers will understand or feel when they see your photographs?
Lukasz Larsson: For me, it is all about communicating science in a way that is relatable. Most people find the idea that the history of humanity is written into the ice cores fascinating and more tangible than abstract scientific concepts. In the case of the ice-core portraits, it was all about turning scientific samples into a conversation starter.
I think a lot of people confuse climate research with weather forecasting, so I was keen to clarify the difference, highlight the depth of the work being undertaken and the characters behind it. The two styles of images, the photojournalistic ones taken on the camp and the ice core portraits, offer different entry points into understanding this type of research.
What were some of the challenges you faced while photographing in such extreme conditions?
Lukasz Larsson: Shooting at temperatures of -20 C for prolonged periods of time is quite brutal and not very conducive to creative work.
The biggest challenge however is technical as the equipment is not designed to function at these temperatures; cameras start to malfunction, batteries and lights stopped working… I brought 6 cameras to the camp and used different sets for indoors and outdoors.
My previous experience as a commercial photographer shooting in remote locations definitely helped. You need to be prepared for every scenario that could go wrong and be ready to pivot in order to deliver the images.
Can you tell us about any other projects in your pipeline?
Lukasz Larsson: I am currently working on a global health story with French researchers who are able to extract the genome of viruses from samples in anatomical collections dating back to the early 1900s.
These collections have typically been used as didactical tools but with the latest sequencing technologies they are helping to shed light on virus evolution. Viral palaeontology is forcing us to re-examine our approach to viral diseases and better prepare for future outbreaks.