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James Balog is an American photographer whose work revolves around the relationship between humans and nature. Since the early 1980s Balog has re-defined environmental photography, whether his subject is endangered animals, North America’s old-growth forests, or polar ice. His work aims to combine insights from art and science to produce innovative, dynamic and sometimes shocking interpretations of our changing world.
Balog’s best-known project explores the impact of climate change on the world’s glaciers. In 2007 he initiated the Extreme Ice Survey, the most wide-ranging ground-based photographic glacier study ever conducted. National Geographic magazine showcased Balog's ice work in June 2007 and June 2010, and the project is featured in the 2009 NOVA documentary Extreme Ice as well as the feature-length film Chasing Ice, which premiered at the Sundance film festival in Utah on January 23, 2012. Balog’s book Ice: Portraits of the World’s Vanishing Glaciers summarizes the work of the Extreme Ice Survey through 2012.
Balog has received many awards for his work, including a 2010 Heinz Award, the Aspen Institute's Visual Arts & Design Award, the Rowell Award for the Art of Adventure, the Leica Medal of Excellence, and the International League of Conservation Photographers League Award. He was the North American Nature Photography Association's Outstanding Photographer of the Year in 2008 and PhotoMedia’s Person of the Year for 2011. In 1996 he became the first photographer ever commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service to create a full set of stamps. He is the author of seven books, including Extreme Ice Now: Vanishing Glaciers and Changing Climate: A Progress Report, Tree: A New Vision of the American Forest, and Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife, hailed as a conceptual breakthrough in nature photography.
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