We present photographs of Arctic tundra landscapes and the plants and wildlife that inhabit them, captured as a part of scientific research expeditions to the rapidly warming Arctic.
Images include landscapes captured from above using drones. These images are part of scientific datasets used to model the 3D structure of the tundra environment.
This work represents the interface between science and art, where the process of data collection has produced imagery that communicates the reality of global change and captures the patterns and beauty of remote Arctic ecosystems.
Copyright for the images is with the authors. Please get in touch if you are interested in using any of our photos.
Artist bios:
Jeff Kerby is postdoctoral researcher at the Neukom Institute at Dartmouth College, USA where he focuses on studying Arctic ecology. He has worked extensively on conservation- and ecology- related drone projects in Africa, South America, and the Arctic. He is also an avid natural history photographer and recently had his first photo feature published in National Geographic magazine (April 2017) and was the winner of the Banff Mountain Film Festival Mountain Photo Essay Competition (2017).
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/jeff-kerby/
Sandra Angers-Blondin is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh where she studies the climate sensitivity of tundra shrub growth. She has worked across Arctic tundra ecosystems in Northern Québec and the Yukon Territory. A keen nature photographer, she has recently won a prize in the British Ecological Society Photographic Contest and featured in Nature Sauvage magazine.
https://www.instagram.com/sandra.angers.b/
Gergana Daskalova is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh where she studies the effects of land-use change and climate change on biodiversity trends around the world. She has worked on Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island in the Canadian Arctic, as well as in Australia and Scotland. She loves photographing birds and nature scapes and documenting science in action. Gergana recently did the photography and videography for the Phenoweb Research project https://phenoweb.org/in-the-field/.
Anne Bjorkman is a postdoctoral researcher at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in Frankfurt where she studies biodiversity changes in tundra ecosystems. She has worked in high Arctic ecosystems, including Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. She is an enthusiastic photographer of landscapes and plants. Her work was recently published in the book “Woolly Bear of the North”.
Isla Myers-Smith has been working in tundra ecosystems for over a decade and is the principal investigator of Team Shrub and when out doing fieldwork she often has a simple point and shoot camera in her back to capture the beauty and adventure of tundra science.
Andrew Cunliffe was a postdoc on the NERC funded ShrubTundra product and has been a drone pilot for over five years capturing imagery from dryland and tundra ecosystems.
http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Andy_cunliffe
Team Shrub is a research group at the University of Edinburgh working to understand how global change alters tundra ecosystems. The research group is led by Isla Myers-Smith and includes the exhibiting photographers and other researchers. Our research is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK. This art project was made possible through an Innovation Initiative Grant from the Edinburgh Fund. Through photography and other media, we hope to engage the public directly with Arctic ecosystems undergoing climate and environmental change – connecting the seemingly distant Arctic to our daily lives.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TeamShrub
@teamshrub @IslaHMS @JTKerby @SandyAngersB @gndaskalova @annebeejay
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/teamshrub/ @teamshrub
Instagram: http://instagram.com/teamshrub
@teamshrub @JTKerby @SandyAngersB @gndaskalova
#TeamShrub
#ArcticfromAbove
Arctic from Above 