News

Glacier photography project wraps up in the Alps

27.08.2020

The “Alps 2020” expedition will conclude the archival photography project “On the Trail of the Glaciers” and will take place in the Italian, French, Swiss and Austrian Alps between mid-July and mid-September 2020.

“On the Trail of the Glaciers”, conceived and coordinated by Mountain Partnership member Macromicro Association, is a photographic-scientific project that combines photographic comparison and scientific research in order to visually display the tangible effects of climate change through the observation glacial mass decreases over the last 150 years. With six expeditions in 10 years to the most important mountain glaciers on Earth (Karakorum 2009, Caucasus 2011, Alaska 2013, Andes 2016, Himalayas 2018, Alps 2020), the project aims at supporting past photographic evidence by taking new photographs from the same observation points and in the same period of the year of those made by photographers-explorers of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The project aims at raising public awareness about the need to safeguard natural resources for the protection of future generations.

This final leg of the project, a trip to the Alps, will develop along an extensive route with the aim of creating the largest archive of photographic comparisons in the Alps and collecting scientific data on the status of Alpine glaciers.

The project was conceived and realized by the photographer Fabiano Ventura, President of the Macromicro Association. The expedition team, composed of photographers, directors and researchers, will meet five groups of scientists from various research institutes and universities that have been collaborating on the project for some time. The whole team will collaborate in glaciological research projects, using different methodologies. Along the way, stopping at some of the most significant locations in the Alps, events will be organized in order to raise public awareness on climate change. For all transfers, the group will use only hybrid technology vehicles.

The iconographic research necessary for the selection of the historical images to be repeated during the “Alps 2020” expedition, which began more than a year ago, has involved more than 70 photographic archives and over 100 collections including museums, foundations, geographic societies, and national and civic libraries throughout Europe.