Pure Alpine Air
it started with research in the Alps
&
a protest
The wind outside the station's old single pane windows roared with the intensity of rocket engines escaping Earth's gravity. Complete whiteout. My breath hung ghostlike in the frigid dry air as I fought the sleep from my mind. Once again, time for the morning rounds.
Outside.
I remember as a kid being fixated on becoming an astronaut. Well, here I was about to spend another morning collecting snow samples outside the research station on what may as well have been a spacewalk. Perched on a rocky pinnacle over 3100 m in the Austrian Alps in the dead of winter, the winds were nuking up to 120 km/h. An inhospitable place indeed without the proper equipment. Tethered to the outside of the research station with windchill down to -24 °C I carefully navigated the labyrinth of icy aluminum ladders and narrow catwalks out around the exposed north-facing walls, to the upper observation deck and eventually up to the top roof tower. At times my harness and tether felt like the only thing anchoring me to the Earth. A few thin pieces of nylon were my only line of defense from the hurricane force winds ripping my spec of an existence off this mountain and blowing me halfway into Italy. As crazy as it sounds, I loved every second of it.
Perhaps this is partly what draws me to the mountains. Not only do I marvel at how we as humans have devised clever ways of surviving these extreme environments, but it is often these remote places that I am in awe for how much they teach us about ourselves and the world around us. At the time I was a grad student working at one of the most notable atmospheric chem labs in the Netherlands (probably in the whole EU). The project I was working on focused on detecting large organic molecules (the stuff in the air that makes the forest smell so heavenly) in the atmosphere and in new snow (hence the spacewalk). Why? Well it turns out we were already pretty skilled at measuring how much of that stuff is in ice cores from deep within Greenland, but we are still deducing how much must have been in the ancient atmosphere at the time the ice was formed. Long story short, we have worked out several smart ways of knowing how the Earth's climate used to be without ever building a time machine, and this important connection through measuring the purest alpine air was yet another piece of the puzzle.
As interesting as the work was, nothing had impacted me more than one morning back at the university lab when one of the hardest working lead researchers told us all to simply "drop everything!" This was at a time before the pandemic when climate protests were becoming center stage, and there was about to be a HUGE one in The Hague. Before anyone could argue or ask why, what she said next really struck me:
"None of this work matters unless people are made aware of what is going on. We are ALL going to the climate protest!"
And so we did.
I have always enjoyed photography, but since then I have grown to realize that photos can be worth so much more than capturing a memory or experience for your own personal nostalgia. It is increasingly impossible for people to care about something they cannot see or do not understand. This is why people protest. A shared photo alone can convey a story, and with a shared story often comes shared inspiration which can be perspective altering. I remember growing up getting lost in the work of Nat Geo photographers bringing the far corners of the world to the tip of my nose. Now we live in an age of influencers striving for the same notoriety with an audience of diminishing attention span in an oversaturated digital landscape. As prosaic as social media has become, one thing I believe that has not changed is that a truly great photo still has the power to cut through all the endless distractions we've created. One singular photo still has the capability of sharing a powerful message. Whether your message is one of grassroots advocacy, brilliant scientific discovery, or simply high adrenaline adventure, I aim to capture that message to help you share your story wherever your endeavors take you.
