URI GOLMAN

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The joy of the Arctic

Text and photo: Uri Golman, greenland today November 2009
 
Greenlandic smile 
– Greenland can do some-thing, no other country can. It can grab you and hold on to you. The great expanses, the endless wilderness and the Greenlandic smile. An infinite mixture that pulls on something that lies deeply buried in our souls and which I have never succeeded in explaining.
– I can’t answer the question of why Greenland and the wilderness keeps drawing me, but with the pictures I can attempt to create visual evidence and an answer as to why I keep going back.
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Greenland is changing
– When I started to take photographs in Greenland, there was a special sense of serenity and a feeling of having all the time in the world. Greenland’s beautiful nature seemed to be infinite and full of possibilities. Wherever I aimed my camera there were beautiful motifs and it is still like this. But my sense of serenity has vanished.
– Greenland is changing with frightening speed. Areas that used to be great open tracts of nature are now found on licence maps of the places where large companies carry out exploration for the minerals and oil required to satisfy the ever growing demand of us humans. Not even the great national park in Greenland is sacred.
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Pictures as documentation
– Today when I take photos in Greenland it is no longer to satisfy my dream of adventure, but just as much to document the changes.
The great landscapes from the ice fjord have changed significantly since my first visit. There are more icebergs and they are smaller. Where there used to be dogsledding from the end of October there is now open water and the polar bears are having difficulty finding enough food because of the lack of pack-ice far to the north.
– My work with the camera has suddenly found a new meaning and I am seeing familiar motifs in a different light. It may sound strange, but after we have noticed global warming and there is focus on the earth’s resources, Greenland has a greater pull on me than ever.
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Smile at climate changes
Global warming may be hard to fix here and now, but we can all be proud of nature and together we can make a difference. A difference that can be created using text, pictures and smiles. For smiles bring joy and with joy we get the energy we need to take care of the nature we all love. This nature takes hold and makes us long to go out into the wilderness.
Read the full article from the magazine here Uri_Golman_dk_uk