A photographer captures glacier melt over the years
Mona Miri holds many titles in the art world. As photo editor and photo art director of photography for Boston Magazine, she is charged with overseeing all of the photography from cover to cover of each publication. She also is a regularly contributing photographer. Even with those accomplishments, she’s perhaps most well known for her work on changing landscapes. Her ICE PROJECT is one such work, highlighting the melting glaciers as a result of climate change.
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The ICE PROJECT is a compilation of five photographs that reflect the change in glacier spread and depth over a period of time. The project also reflects Miri’s passion and focus on the environment through her practice as a sustainability photographer.
Related: Antarctic sea ice melt phenomenon explained in new research
Each image is described in detail by the photographer. As an overview, the first two and fifth photographs are diptychs. They are intended to show the before and after landscape of different areas. Two national parks are represented in the work: the Glacier National Park in Montana and Chugach National Forest in Alaska. Furthermore, the series previously exhibited in celebration of Earth month.
“In June 2019, ICE #1 from ICE PROJECT was accepted as a finalist in the Earth Photo London, which was exhibited at the Royal Geological Society in London with a traveling exhibition for one year in England’s National Forests,” Miri said.
ICE #1
Grinnell Glacier in Montana has seen excessive melting glaciers in the past decade. The glacier is melting so fast that it is one of the most visibly affected by climate change occurring in a U.S. Park. Soon enough, Glacier Park, hence the name, will have no more glaciers because of warming temperatures.
In this image on the right, taken in 2017 at Iceberg Lake in Grinnell Glacier, you can see the receding icebergs and the receding mouth of the glacier, which now is relatively a lake. The image on the left, taken in 1910 by John Morton, in collaboration with University of Montana image archives, shows the peak of Grinnell looking down at the mouth of the glacier. It is visible the contrast of melting glaciers in the before and after comparison.