I Captured The ‘Disappearing’ Beauty Of Greenland, And Here's The Result (30 Pics)

The town Ilulissat, where I was staying a little less than 2 weeks, is still very laidback. No big airport, no big car rental companies, chill people and a small harbor. But this might change soon. When I saw the number of people visiting this year I can’t imagine what this town will look like in 10 to 15 years. I was really surprised by how many people were visiting Greenland when I was there. I am from the Netherlands myself and none of my friends and family ever visited the country.

It’s not really known as a popular tourist hotspot, but when I was actually there I quickly discovered I was wrong. And really, it’s no surprise that people want to see it. Because… it’s beautiful! The amazing ice you see in the sea is an unreal sight. With the midnight sun colors hitting the ice and a beautiful color palette in the sky, it’s like being in a dreamworld. Sailing through the ice fjord is magical. And that’s what we did. Every day.

I was in Greenland guiding 2 photo tours. During these tours, we sailed our 2 little red sailboats. Using our red sailboats we show the scale of the massive shapes and peaks of the icebergs. For me as a photography guide, this location is always amazing. It’s just never the same. It’s challenging which keeps it interesting.

Icebergs can be massive and they are floating in the sea. They always move so there can be new icebergs to explore every day. Basically, I can explore new landscapes at the same location every day! We always try to find icebergs with interesting shapes, arches and holes in them. The guests love it, fly their drone through it while using our little boats as models. With our red sailboats, we add a new dimension to the beauty of Greenland.

With this project, I aim to show the beauty of the country in my own way. It’s like creating art out of nature. We position and navigate our sailboats through the ice, sometimes taking hours to find a good composition or iceberg. The results are photos that seem unreal. By using clever placement of the sailboats, we create scale, emotion and a certain atmosphere. The boats are our subject, and the ice landscapes combined with the weather conditions are our canvas. We use everything ranging from wide-angle lenses, midrange, to super-telephoto lenses and drones.

Our captains are extremely skilled and are able to position the boats exactly where we want them. As a photographer, this is something I love to do. People who know my work know that I love to plan ‘extreme’ shots. I have photographed moon shots, volcanos, and milky ways and even a solar eclipse, all perfectly lined up with a subject: sometimes a model and at other times a building or structure. Planning this kind of shots motivates me to the extreme, therefore using these little sailboats to create magical photos is something that I can put all of my passion into.

We planned a wide variety of photos ranging from photos where our boats where behind arches, against a moonrise, against huge walls of ice, around interesting icebergs that you can see through the water, etc. The compositions and possibilities are endless. It’s really a playground for a photographer like me. Our little red boats are, of course, very tempting to photograph. I also tried to capture the beauty of the ice pieces and textures. Showing the raw beauty of what nature can do to this ice is another prime goal of this project. Playing with shapes, textures and reflections in the water, sometimes using a seagull or a whale for the scale, shows the real raw beauty of this place. A place that might not exist anymore after a few 100 years, or maybe even much sooner. Maybe even in my lifetime?

With global warming really kicking in over the last year with record temperatures everywhere (record after record broke in my hometown Amsterdam this year, and last year we had extreme droughts), it’s really something that we should be aware of even more. This is not only about Greenland. This is about our whole planet.