PROJECT DETAILS

Destinations

The project follows the story geographically, from the front lines of relocation to the contested wilderness at the center of a national policy fight.

  • Newtok and Mertarvik — documenting the first American community relocated due to climate change, from the eroding original village site to the new settlement

  • Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the coastal plain — currently at the center of federal oil and gas leasing decisions, and central to Gwich'in subsistence life and the Porcupine caribou herd's calving grounds

  • Bristol Bay — one of the world's largest wild salmon fisheries, facing pressure from resource extraction

  • The Inside Passage — documenting glacial retreat

  • Katmai — wildlife and ecosystem documentation in a protected but climate-affected region

Timeline

The 20-week structure is built around the seasons themselves, not a fixed shooting schedule — each season tells a different part of the story.

  • 20 weeks of fieldwork spread across all four seasons, allowing the same locations and communities to be documented through seasonal transformation

  • Field seasons aligned with ecological and cultural rhythms: glacial melt and salmon runs in summer, subsistence harvest and migration in fall, extreme cold and reduced daylight in winter, and breakup and early renewal in spring

  • Structured to capture both environmental change (ice retreat, coastal erosion) and human continuity (subsistence practices, community life) across a full annual cycle

Cameras & Equipment

Every system component was chosen for optimal image quality and durability in the field.

  • Leica S (medium format) — large image sensor and stellar lenses capable of finite detail paired with weatherproofing for use in rain, snow, and at sea.

  • Leica M Monochrom — a dedicated black-and-white rangefinder system used for observational, documentary-style work; its monochrome-only sensor produces sharper detail and cleaner tonality than a color sensor converted to black and white, and its compact, quiet body suits close, unobtrusive work in sensitive community settings

  • Profoto A2 portable flash — compact on-location strobe lighting for interior and low-light fieldwork

  • Supporting field kit: weatherproofing and cold-weather gear for equipment operating in sub-zero and wet coastal conditions, spare batteries and power management for extended off-grid stretches, and redundant storage/backup systems to protect data while in the field

deliverables

The work moves from the field to permanent public record — in three forms.

  • Museum-caliber gallery exhibition — large-format fine art prints produced for wall-scale exhibition, sequenced to move a viewer through the arc of the project: displacement, retreat, and resilience

  • Published monograph — a hardbound photobook documenting the full four-season narrative, designed for release through a fine-art or documentary photography publisher

  • Public digital archive — an open, freely accessible online archive preserving the complete body of work, field notes, and contextual documentation beyond the physical print run

modes of transport

Access itself is one of the project's central logistical challenges — many of these locations have no roads.

  • Bush planes — small aircraft chartered for access to roadless villages and remote field sites, often the only way in or out

  • Skiffs — small boats used for coastal travel and close approach to tidewater glaciers and shoreline communities

  • Overland travel — vehicle travel across accessible interior routes, including Denali and connecting corridors between field sites