The end of winter  

Living in Sweden the change of seasons is in my DNA. Nature has been my entry to natural sciences, a safe home, and an endless source of inspiration. I love winter with its ice and snow, to an extent where it is part of my identity.

This is all now at risk. Our winters will cease to be in just a few decades, and the sea is turning to a threat. A threat that our way of living has created and that not only my children, but hundreds of generations need to take the consequences of.

Our way of living must change, and the focus of my project is to visualize the effect of climate change in my nearby surroundings, emphasizing my worries of the effects should we fail to limit global warming.

The project consists of three specific themes. In the first theme “The End of Winter” I have photographed landscapes in black and white symbolizing the dying winter.

In the theme “Innocent Childhood” I reflect over the fact that the climate crisis is caused by my generation in the western world. At the start of a decade that will be crucial for alleviating our mistakes, my first grandchild was born. Will he be able to grow up as carefree as I did, or will my life in abundance hamper his? The basis for this theme is original diapositives from my own childhood 50 years ago.

As I walk the streets, I wonder how people cope with the crisis. Are some still denying climate change? Who are in despair? Have some already delt with the identity crisis and passed the transition to become climate heroes with a purpose? The photographs in the final theme “From Denial to Engaged” are recent street photographs from Stockholm.

All images have been printed and left to freeze in the Baltic Sea overnight. There they have been rephotographed under a thin sheet of fresh ice. The sea and the ice serve as a metaphor for the climate crisis. The resulting distortion gives an indication of how dramatic a few degrees temperature change can affect our lives.

The images are part of my MA thesis (2022) at Novia University of Applied sciences in Jakobstad, Finland. The thesis is presented as a printed book with 73 pages and the visual part consists of 36 photographs. A PDF version can be downloaded here www.theseus.fi/handle/10024... For more info, please drop an email to martin@contextphoto.com