Freeze Frame

In July 2005, British photographer Nick Cobbing spent four weeks in Greenland with a Greenpeace International climate change research expedition photographing the Greenland ice cap as it thawed, calving off huge icebergs and creating melt lakes. Hanging out the door of a small helicopter and bracing himself on the deck of an icebreaker bobbing on the icy seas, Cobbing shot spectacular images of dense, aquamarine ice fracturing, bubbles of prehistoric air trapped in glacial ice, and bright blue melt water collecting in lakes on glacial surfaces as gray, cracked and dusty as an elephant's hide.

Cobbing's photograph of the colorful village of Narsaq seen through a hole in the melting ice graced the cover of Audubon magazine's September-October 2006 issue on global warming, and a suite of 12 of his Greenland photographs took second place in this year's Picture of the Year competition in the science/natural history picture story category. Cobbing's Greenland series is the latest in a decade's worth of work he has done with Greenpeace.

"There isn't a problem in Greenland that was caused by the people in Greenland. It's people back here," says Cobbing of his effort to call graphic attention to the reality of global warming. "My work can play a part in the whole process."

Cobbing, 39, was born in London in December 1967. Though he has been interested in photography since childhood, he did not get serious about it until the early 1990s when, while working as a carpenter, he became involved in the youth protest movement against government attempts to criminalize squatting. For several years, Cobbing served as picture editor of Squall, a counterculture squatters' magazine, and then he picked up the camera himself to document environmentalists protesting against the destruction of forests and the construction of highway bypasses. On one occasion, he was arrested after climbing a tree with protesters to get photographs more conventional photojournalists could not.

As his photographs of Britain's protest movement began to appear in mainstream publications such as The Guardian, Cobbing approached Greenpeace International about working with them. In 1996, he received his first Greenpeace assignment, documenting the campaign against genetically modified crops and food. Over the past ten years, Cobbing has worked with Greenpeace on campaigns related to forestry and timber harvesting, fisheries and whaling, peace and disarmament, nuclear power, toxic chemicals, fair trade, renewable energy and, in 2005, global warming.

"Nick looks off the main center of activity for something that sums up the message," says Greenpeace International picture editor John Novis. "That way picture editors see it less as propaganda. Greenland was his very best work indeed. He really excelled there."

The 2005 Greenpeace International Greenland expedition was a two-month undertaking. Cobbing was flown in for the second month to document both the work of the scientists and the environmental changes in Greenpeace's effort "to draw attention to Greenland as the epicenter of the climate change cycle."

Cobbing credits helicopter pilot Hughie Balfour-Paul with being "the key to the images" he got in Greenland. Balfour-Paul picked Cobbing up at the airport in Greenland and flew him to the deck of the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise on the southeast coast of Greenland. From the ship, whenever the little chopper wasn't busy ferrying scientists and crew, Balfour-Paul took Cobbing and videographer flying up the fjords and over the ice cap to make aerial photographs.

"It was very cold, very windy, and there was a tremendous feeling of exposure," says Cobbing, explaining that the doors of the helicopter had to be removed so that he could get unobstructed views of the glacial terrain.

Because of the turbulent conditions, Cobbing says he liked the fact that his Canon EOS-1Ds Mark I digital camera was "nice and heavy." Cobbing also took some panoramic photographs with a Hasselblad Xpan, but he has been so busy editing the 4,000 digital images he made that he has not yet had time to process the film.

"The photographs were shot in four weeks," Cobbing says, "but I spent six months editing."

From the 4,000 images he made, Cobbing edited the Greenland series down to 31 photographs?20 frames shot from the helicopter, 6 from an inflatable boat, 4 from the deck of the Arctic Sunrise and just 1 standing on the ice.

"I like the experience of the elements," he says. "I have never worked in a studio. I'd die if I had to work in a studio every day. I actually quite like discomfort. I like the feeling of being tested by the weather."

Most of the photographs Cobbing selected are pure, almost abstract landscape images calculated to show the dynamic forces at work on the Greenland ice cap, but Cobbing's favorite image is the picture of Narsaq that graced the cover of Audubon.

"The hole in the ice was key for me," he says. "That was the first time I got the picture with all the ingredients. Those little drips falling on a settlement visible through the hole in the ice is my little statement about climate change."

Ultimately, Cobbing says he has been surprised and a little alarmed at the reactions his Greenland photographs have provoked when he has presented them in slide talks?silence.

"It tends to leave people a bit speechless?which is good. But I'm looking at ways to bring more context to the photographs. If people are too awestruck, how do I interest them in the work?"

Of course, this is the same reaction environmental organizations like Greenpeace get when they try to explain to people that Greenland lost 52 cubic miles of ice last year and that half of Greenland's ice cap is melting twice as fast as it was in 1992?silence and awe.



How to Shoot for NGOs

Nick Cobbing has worked not only for Greenpeace but also the World Wildlife Fund, Actionaid and Christianaid. If you're interested in shooting for NGOs, says Cobbing, "you have to be more touchy-feely."

"You've got to understand the psyche of campaigning and advocacy work," he explains. "It's different. A lot of guys from the commercial world just don't get it, and there are a lot of guys from the press who just don't get it either."

Cobbing's principal advice is: "Start locally."

"Don't think you can make the huge jump right into the central operation of an NGO without spending many years under-standing how campaigning, advocacy and political action work. When you're not getting any work, you can still go out and do it. You don't have to get paid."

Which leads to Cobbing's second piece of advice for would-be NGO photographers. "You have to believe in it. It's not possible to make a successful image in a campaigning context if you don't have a belief in the cause."

John Novis, picture editor of Greenpeace International, says the organization primarily uses a core of 15 to 20 photographers but keeps a book of hundreds of photographers worldwide. At the moment, he is most interested in finding good photographers in Brazil and China.

"If a Chinese photojournalist with Nicklike qualities called from Beijing," says Novis, "I'd probably hire him immediately."