waited a long time, almost a month to be a guest graced, liked not to push. Paul Nicklin mind. He was aware of the, well, Yes, the sensibilities of the visitor. A little different polarity they are up here in Svalbard, Spitsbergen, the Norwegian archipelago that rests like a suburb of the North pole in the Arctic ocean.
Nicklin to believe in the power of respect to those whose home this country is. Those who show respect, get no problems. “I’ve never had a dangerous encounter with one of them experienced. I’ll let you set the pace. You need to be relaxed,” he says one Morning in his present home, in British Columbia, Canada.
at some point, a storm drove straight out across the Land, as he had been then actually in front of the window and hereingelugt, this excellent polar bear. “A feeling of deep gratitude filled me at the time, in this Moment.”
feels No fear?
“The only really dangerous species is the human being. He is fickle, difficult to assess. Because the anger is sufficient in road transport, in the US, for example, you live there with all the weapons to be dangerous.”
3000 polar bear he photographed in his life, a Problem never existed. He was early a part of their world, may have helped. In a 200-resident community on Baffin Island in Northern Canada spent Nicklin, today 50, his Childhood, the mother a teacher – “and so my teacher, that sucks”. The father was entrusted with the maintenance of heavy machinery.
Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard In the northernmost village of Europe By Till Bartels
Once a year, the food arrived with the ship. One of only four Non-Inuit families were the Nicklens, the small Paul learned from those who called the ice home. Today, Nicklin reported of a Childhood, can not conceive of the author of a children’s book would have been more beautiful. “We were always outside. If you live there, keeps you in the house. We have seen seals, polar bears, we played under the polar light. We held our world is literally in your own Hand.” He calls his Childhood “real-life Avatar” – too idyllic to be true.
socks on the Arctic ice
It is the love for nature, which is one of the most renowned Outdoor photographers in the world is made to be an activist against climate change. He has grown up with men like the French underwater photographer Laurent Ballesta in common, in the vicinity of Montpellier, near the Mediterranean sea. Anyone who speaks with two long, discovered a common core, must have been early formed, and takes you into the remote corners of our planet.
Until today, it draws back Nicklin again and again into the White, into the Cold. He says that he will find his true peace, where the civilization ends and the Flora and Fauna are, at least, be left apparently unaffected. “I get new energy when I am alone in nature. She is so pure, completely,” he says. Probably, therefore, a bitter sense of calm to him, the Ballesta as.
biology studied Nicklin and worked as a wildlife biologist in Yellowknife in Northern Canada before he announced the age of 26 and his true determination has followed: the photography. In 2005, he traveled for the first Time in the Antarctic and has since returned 15 Times, to document, under water, on Land and in the air beauty and vulnerability of those species that are already affected before eradication. Regular expeditions were in the Arctic.
“I can bear cold well”
A Generalist among the nature photographers Nicklin, on earth, under water, from all perspectives, he photographed. The elusive Narwhals, with their powerful tusks, spears the same, he expected a hour on socks every creaking of the ice, the animals would be scared to dive in. “I imagine each and every picture carefully before I do it, there are 10,000 of a Situation before.”
He loves the Arctic Vastness, the clarity of its contours; if there is a natural Habitat for him, so it is here. But what is loneliness, what is with the cold? “What is with the heat in the tropics? What is with the noise of cars in the cities? What with the whole sheet?”, back he asks. “I can bear cold well, for sure a good luck. As long as you don’t get wet, everything is good. Only then it will be dangerous.”
Nicklin wants to know his work not as an end in itself, but as a preservative photography understood that images can move the hearts of the people win. A silent call to his photos, to areas of global warming to a halt. She has already claimed too many victims, not only among the animals.
through the window, views, triggers the end of the polar bear today at Nicklin especially melancholy. It awakens the memory of a crashed friend: “He was with me on the Expedition. Two days after the end he went with the snow mobile on the ice and not broken, because areas were suddenly accessible, it has always been.”
+++ Click track through the photo: “Ny-Ålesund on Spitsbergen In the northernmost village of Europe” +++