JOE CALLERI REVIEWS - NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC LIVE – INTO THE ICY REALMS: ON ASSIGNMENT WITH PAUL NICKLEN.

What – NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC LIVE – INTO THE ICY REALMS: ON ASSIGNMENT WITH PAUL NICKLEN

Where and When – ARTS CENTRE, MELBOURNE, FAIRFAX STUDIO; SUNDAY 28 July, 2013, 3PM AND 6PM

Reviewer - Joe Calleri.
Stars - 4.

Full Disclosure - I attended this presentation on a complimentary ticket provided to me by the event publicist.

During this entertaining, thought-provoking, 75-minute presentation titled Into The Icy Realms, Canadian marine biologist and award winning, National Geographic photojournalist, Paul Nicklen, provides some fascinating insights into his “get the shot at all costs” philosophy that goes into capturing beautiful, often breath-taking nature images.

For readers unfamiliar with the National Geographic Live series of presentations, they involve prominent National Geographic photojournalists presenting, and discussing how some of their most iconic images were captured. The images are shown on a large projection screen.

Nicklen, who specialises in capturing endangered marine life on our polar regions, and who has had more than 16 photo stories published by the iconic, US-based, 125-year-old National Geographic magazine, is an enthusiastic, passionate, often humorous raconteur. His passion intensifies when he discusses the many real and present dangers - including global warming, and rampant hunting - that face our polar regions and its vulnerable, animal inhabitants.

Lest you believe being on assignment for the world-famous National Geographic magazine is some type of Martini-sipping, romantic fantasy, Nicklen provides his audience with the harsh truth of this dangerous profession in graphic detail: living in a tent for months at a time on ice and enduring sub-zero conditions; only having between 1 and 2 hours of shooting during a one-month period, and failing 95% of the time to take any usable images; crash-landing ultra-light planes in the Canadian Arctic while travelling to remote locations to photograph the elusive, long-toothed Narwhal whales; falling through ice into freezing water, only to be saved in the nick of time by a laconic, Inuit hunter; almost being killed by a bull seal. Tales straight out of a Boys Own Adventure annual by a man whose philosophy on image-taking includes “get as close as possible to your subject and if you get scared, suck it up.”

But, when Nicklen does capture his award-winning images, they are, as you would expect, wondrous to behold especially when shown as giant projections. Beautifully lit and composed, in-your face, close-up images of polar bears, emperor penguins, and leopard seals brought spontaneous gasps, cheers and universal applause from an entranced audience.

IMAGE OF A WALRUS BY PAUL NICKLEN: SUPPLIED.

IMAGE OF EMPEROR PENGUINS BY PAUL NICKLEN: SUPPLIED.

Weaving throughout Nicklen’s presentation is a very serious conservationist sub-text that describes a fragile, disappearing, polar ice eco-system that will potentially cause the extinction of polar bears during our life-time.

In generations to come, I believe Nicklen’s photos may be used by historians to reveal a time when beautiful creatures inhabited our planet’s icy, polar regions.

These presentations will appeal not only to amateur and professional photographers alike, but, to those with an adventurous spirit, and those with a conscience regarding the future of our planet and its increasingly vulnerable animal inhabitants.

This is the first time that, National Geographic Live has been to Melbourne. I sincerely hope that such presentations will become a regular fixture for the National Geographic.

The next National Geographic presentation, enticingly titled “Grizzlies, Piranhas and Man-Eating Pigs”, will be by explorer, Joel Sartore, and you will be able to catch it at The Arts Centre, on 01 September 2013.

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