RAGNAR AXELSSON : GLACIER

 

Glacier (Qerndu, 2018)

Photograph © Ragnar Axelsson

Photograph © Ragnar Axelsson

Photograph © Ragnar Axelsson

Photograph © Ragnar Axelsson

Photograph © Ragnar Axelsson

"The glacier…hides a mysterious life of it’s own, but if we are lucky, as we follow it down from the peak of the mountain it covers, it will allow us glimpses of some of the many odd creatures of ice and ash, and deep secrets from centuries past, it carries with it to the sea.” 

– Ragnar Axelsson

+  +  +

Ragnar Axelsson, a longtime Leica photographer affectionately known as RAX, is one of Iceland’s heroes, documenting the Arctic for over 35 years. He's authored many books, photographing the people, weather, and landscape, in some of the most remote and isolated regions around Iceland, Greenland, and Siberia. He’s won numerous awards for this work, including over 20 Icelandic Photojournalist Awards;The Leica Oskar Barnack Award (Honorable Mention); The Grand Prize, Photo de Mer, Vannes; and Iceland’s highest honor, the Order of the Falcon, Knight’s Cross, for his work in the Arctic. 

His steadfast belief in the importance of documenting the life and changes in the Arctic, has been the driving force behind creating his most recent book, Glacier. A must-have for the astonishing beauty of the region (gorgeously printed in Italy), as well as for those of you following our world's current environmental and climate-change issues. This book is "an ode to the glacier," the current status is they are shrinking 100 meters per year, with scientists predicting they will disappear within two centuries.

In Jonathan Blaustein’s book review of Glacier in The New York Times Lens Blog (12.28.2018), he writes; “Earth’s surface, in his abstracted, horizon-less photographs, does look like a massive supine dragon or an impossibly immense dinosaur, some reptilian beast with cracked, rough-hewn skin and eyes about to open.” 

"The pearls of Iceland are it’s Glaciers," Ragnar Axelsson responded.

GLACIER

Photographs and Text by Ragnar Axelsson

Foreword by artist Olafur Eliasson
Reykjavík: Qerndu, 2018
Icelandic version: Jökull 

Link To Purchase Glacier or Jökull

Ragnar Axelssons "Glacier" exhibition at Ásmundasal Art Center in Reykjavik

Icelandic Photographer, Ragnar 'RAX' Axelsson