For 40 years, visionary environmental photographer James Balog has broken new conceptual and artistic ground on one of the most important issues of our era: human modification of nature. He started as a photojournalist specializing in projects involving landscape, outdoor adventure, wildlife, and technology for publications including National Geographic, Time, Life, Fortune, Smithsonian, the New York Times Magazine, and many others.
An extended study of the plight of wild animals in a changing world, published in 1990 as Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife, took his work into new dimensions.
A 2005 project in Iceland for The New Yorker led to a creative breakthrough about how to reveal climate change through photography of receding glaciers.
In 2007 Balog founded the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), the most wide-ranging, ground-based, photographic study of glaciers ever conducted. EIS became the basis of the Emmy and Sundance awarded film Chasing Ice. In 2014, Balog founded Earth Vision Institute, which has produced a major book, The Human Element: A Time Capsule from the Anthropocene, and a feature film of the same name.
James has received many honours and awards. He is Cornell University’s A.D. White Professor-at-Large; the recipient of the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum ‘Visionary’ Award in 2024. He is a research associate of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.
He remains an activist, public educator, and global spokesman about climate change.
