Polar Obsession
By (Author) Paul Nicklen
National Geographic Society
National Geographic Society
15th December 2009
United States
General
Non Fiction
Wildlife: general interest
591.709113
Hardback
240
Width 359mm, Height 281mm
The Arctic is in Paul Nicklen's blood. Born and raised on Baffin Island, Nunavut, he grew up in one of the only non-Inuit families in a tiny native settlement amid the ice fields, floes, and frigid seas of Northern Canada. At an age when most children are playing hide-and-seek, he was learning life-and-death lessons of survival- how to read the weather, find shelter in a frozen snowscape, or live off the land as his Inuit neighbors had done for centuries. Today Nicklen is a naturalist and wildlife photographer uniquely qualified to portray the impact of climate change on the polar regions and their inhabitants, human and animal alike. In a wise and wonderful intertwining of art and science, his bold expeditions plunge him into freezing seas to capture unprecedented, up-close documentation of the lives of leopard seals, whales, walruses, polar bears, bearded seals, and narwhals. Bathed in polar light, his images, inspiring and amazing, break new ground in photography and provide a vivid, timely portrait of two extraordinary, endangered ecosystems.
Paul Nicklen has been published in magazines around the world, including ten articles for National Geographic. He began his career as a wildlife biologist and took up photography fifteen years ago with the desire to bridge the gap between scientific research and public knowledge on wildlife subjects and climate change.