Above Zero. Photographs by Olaf Otto Becker. Text by Dr. Konrad Steffan. Interview by Freddi Langer. Hatje Cantz, 2009. 160 pp., 75 color illustrations, 13½x11".
German photographer Olaf Otto Becker has worked as a freelance photographer since 1988, as well as exhibiting frequently and contributing to various publications.
In 2008 Broken Line, his exploration of the coast of Greenland, was published and subsequently won the 'German Photo Book Award'. 'Above Zero' is in a way an extension of his work in 'Broken Line', but in these series of photographs he's instead examining the interior landscape of Greenland - a country who has the second largest inland ice surfaces in the world.
"Becker’s spectacular portraits of this region are taken during physically strenuous, sometimes life-threatening treks among glacial crevasses and melting ice floes, with a cumbersome large-format camera.
His photo studies draw out the overwhelming beauty of this icy landscape, while documenting their present fragility: dust and rust in the air form black, crusty deposits, which, in conjunction with global warming, accelerate the melting of the ice sheets - with what will probably be inevitable, catastrophic results."
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