James Balog

For 40 years, visionary photographer, esteemed author of nine books, filmmaker and avid lifelong mountaineer, James Balog, has revealed the most crucial environmental issues of our time. His award-winning 2018 film, The Human Element (Mountainfilm 2018), has screened worldwide, showcasing how humans are “shaping the Earth as we know it.” Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey is the most extensive, ground-based, photographic study of glaciers ever conducted and was the basis for the film Chasing Ice (Mountainfilm 2012), which won an Emmy, the Sundance award for cinematography and landed an Oscar nomination. His work is also the subject of 1000 Cuts (Mountainfilm 2015) and Message in a Bottle (Mountainfilm 2016). In 2009, he served as a U.S./NASA representative at the United Nations Conference on climate change in Copenhagen, and he has given presentations at places that range from TED to the White House. His photographs can be found in dozens of public and private art collections around the world. Balog’s most recent film Chasing Time (Mountainfilm 2024) is about his life and work as he brings the 15-year-long Extreme Ice Survey project to a close.