Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series dedicated to reporting on our planet’s environmental challenges and finding solutions to those challenges. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative has partnered with CNN to raise awareness and education on key sustainability issues and inspire positive action. Biologist Luis Jácome is a laureate of the Rolex Awards.
The polar bear was just a distant speck in a frozen white expanse. A film crew started to follow him at a distance and got closer little by little. Suddenly the bear sensed something and changed direction; The team followed him hoping he would lead them to a dam. The bear stopped by a hole a seal had torn in the ice and waited. The team too.
They sat there for 12 hours waiting for the bear to move. For 12 hours the bear lay half asleep, half awake at the edge of the hole. It was too long: the crew had been working 22 hours straight on the sea ice and had to go back to camp. Cold and exhausted, they entered their defeat. Unrewarded waiting times are common. “This is the price we pay for unique images,” says award-winning French photographer and filmmaker Florian Ledoux.
This is the reality of wildlife photography: it always depends on nature. But that is also its challenge and its appeal. “Every shot we take in the Arctic is a struggle,” he says. “We push our limits; we feel alive doing it.”
Ledoux uses a drone to capture a new perspective. Here a young polar bear is crawling on the ice. (Courtesy of Florian Ledoux)
Ledoux speaks to CNN via video call from his home in Tromsø, northern Norway. She’s wearing a red and white knitted turtleneck, and at 2:00 p.m. local time, through the window behind her, the sky is a deep indigo on the polar night of December.
He has spent the last two winters on the Arctic sea ice filming iconic scenes for the BBC nature documentary series Frozen Planet and the Disney film Polar Bear, among others. Driven by his passion for preserving nature, his exceptional aerial photography has earned him awards including the 2018 Siena International Photo Awards for Drone Photographer of the Year and 2020 for Nature TTL Photographer of the Year.
Conquering the Arctic in winter comes at a price. Ledoux describes how devastating winter conditions take their physical toll: tight darkness and low vitamin D levels affect mood, lack of routine messes up the biological clock and one always struggles with bitter cold, with temperatures plummeting to below 40 degrees on some days zero . On those days, anything you touch with your bare hands sticks to your skin, and every time you exhale, the moisture freezes on your face, he says. Despite multi-layered clothing, huge down mittens and a neoprene mask and ski goggles, the cold fights.
Ledoux uses a drone to capture a new perspective. Here a young polar bear is crawling on the ice. (Courtesy of Florian Ledoux)
But these are the days Ledoux lives for. There was a time last winter when the air was cool, the sun was low, and an intense stillness enveloped the sea ice. Ledoux saw steam rising from behind an iceberg and, following it with his drone, spotted a large male polar bear sleeping on the ice: “His body was warm and as he breathed, smoke came out of his mouth like he was a dragon .”
Ledoux prepares for bad weather. (Courtesy of Florian Ledoux)
protagonists
Despite being found far from human contact in the wild, Ledoux is often at the mercy of producers’ shot lists. Disney, Netflix or the like might ask for a specific shot of a polar bear, e.g. B. a hunting or mating scene. It may take days or months to get it, but the key is not to rush.
After finding a bear, the team stands in front of it and waits for it to slowly approach. “We want to make sure he likes us,” says Ledoux, adding that to capture genuine and unique behavior, the bear needs to be comfortable around him. If a bear is shy or reacts poorly to its presence, it will stop chasing it. “It’s like this: If he doesn’t want to be the star, you can’t force him.”
A polar bear photographed after feeding in Svalbard. (Source: courtesy of Florian Ledoux)
Over time, Ledoux believes, each bear begins to be recognized. Some have a different appearance, given the shape of their face or their physical features. Some are shy, others curious and playful.
One of his highest-grossing photos, which earned pride of place in the Disney film Polar Bear, shows two bears happily skating together on ice. Ledoux had never seen two bears having so much fun: “It was pure magic. We were so excited afterwards that we forgot to eat all day.”
The feeling of being close to a polar bear is addictive, he says. The first time he saw one, he got goosebumps, and despite the hundreds of encounters he’s had since, that reaction hasn’t waned. “They are so majestic and beautiful… They give me a lot of emotions,” he adds. His goal is to convey these emotions through his images.
Ledoux spent hours watching these two polar bears play with each other. (Image credit: Florian Ledoux)
melting ice
One of Ledoux’s photos, which made the covers of Oceanographic Magazine and Wildlife Photographic, shows a polar bear jumping unsteadily between boulders of ice. It conveys a message of fragility and reflects the threat of shrinking ice sheets. The Arctic is warming almost four times faster than the rest of the planet, leading to melting ice and threatening the entire ecosystem that depends on it.
Even in the few years that Ledoux has been exploring the Arctic, he has witnessed these changes. It has rained for days during the winter months and the ground on which they can work is becoming smaller and smaller as the sea ice is less stable.
Aerial view of the Austfonna Ice Cap melting in the summer of 2020, shortly after the Svalbard archipelago recorded its hottest temperature on record. (Image credit: Florian Ledoux)
“It’s important to document,” he says, comparing his role to that of a war photographer, albeit at a slower pace and with less impending danger. There is urgency and he feels compelled to record what is happening.
“Would I fly the drone just to fly the drone? No,” he says. “The drone is a tool that allows me to capture a unique beauty and perspective of nature to give a voice to those who cannot speak.”