Courtesy of my good friend, Marcos Beltra, proud of his "brudda." - And, rightfully so.
This appeared in La Vanguardia and was translated from Spanish to English with an online translation service:
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By Ignacio Ortega
Moscow, December 3 (EFE). - The Spanish Daniel Beltran, one of the most prestigious nature photographers in the world, has been placed at the forefront of the fight against climate change with images trying to shake the ecological consciousness of human beings.
"We are increasingly separated from nature. Seems incredible that we need disasters like the 'Sandy' to awaken. Images from a flooded Manhattan have opened the eyes of Americans," he told Efe photographer based in Seattle (USA).
While others choose to photograph the incomparable beauty of the nature of our planet, prefers Beltrá delve into the dark side of human impact on the ecosystem.
"Out of sight, out of mind. Imagery climate change effects are terrible but at the same time, fine. My mission is to translate science into images, transforming carbon emissions in pictures," he says.
His camera has captured deforestation reflected in a boat with passengers stranded for months in the Brazilian Amazon, the greed of man in the eyes of some pelicans blackened by the spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the melting Arctic in the jump of a polar bear between two icebergs.
Beltrá, awarded the World Press Photo in 2006 and 2007, believes that climate change is not a matter of faith or ideology, but "a truth as big as the Earth is round."
"The planet is warming at a faster rate than ever before in history. No denying, unless you have bad faith. Those who deny climate change are the same as Galileo said that the earth was flat "he says.
The former vice president of the United States Al Gore chose Beltrá photos on Upsala glacier for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006), winner of an Oscar, while the Prince Charles Foundation in 2009 awarded its chilling images of the deterioration lung Earth: the Amazon.
Beltran, who began his career as a photographer at Reuters (1989-92), is not resting on its laurels and has just returned from the Arctic, where his camera has frozen the rapid decline of the ice.
"The forecasts pointing to a record low of the ice covering the Arctic.'s Worst fears came true.'ve Lost an awful lot of ice. We have gone from 29 percent in 2007 to 24 percent this year," he said.
Words fail. His latest pictures show the Arctic is no longer a moonscape or a frozen desert, but a radio graph with white (ice), black (water) and gray (melt), a patchwork of cracked ice, an unfinished puzzle.
"I was surprised to see so many gray ice masses, when it should be a white image, almost monochromatic. That means continue to melt. Scientists told me they had never seen anything like it," he says.
As in many cases, Beltrá traveled to the final frontier aboard the Arctic Sunrise, the Greenpeace flagship, the organization that has worked for over 20 years.
"From the air it looks much better. The first time I got on a helicopter was by chance, but once you take that perspective, that distance, and do not want to lose. If you see a burnt forest a thousand feet high, feeling the impact is much greater and beauty, too," he said.
"A bird's eye view", that is the trademark of this photographer from Madrid, who has spent 20 years documenting climate change and natural disasters such as the sinking of the tanker "Aegean Sea" in Galicia (1992), but remember that only recently work attracted the attention of the public.
"The coverage of the drought in the Amazon in 2005 changed my career. Thought it would be difficult to photograph the rainforest and the largest river in the world, but what I found is a boat beached on the sand for months due to the fall in the level water, "he says.
Beltrá not believe in neutrality or objectivity, "took sides. When I get on a plane, I can show perfect forest or deforestation, since the two are together."
Recently, we have found another means of changing public perception: ecological or conservation photography as art and their presence in museums, art galleries, libraries, parliaments or aquariums.
"Nobody wants to live without running water and polluted air. Should be a basic right of the individual. Resources are not infinite. Live in a closed aquarium. Pets and people. If you do not pass the mop occasionally
... Courtesy of EFE
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