On Thin Ice
01 — Project details
On Sólheimajökull, one of Iceland’s fastest-retreating glaciers, a team of highliners rig a 57-metre line above an ice crevasse. The line represents the distance the glacier melts in an average year. As they prepare to cross, the film turns climate data into something visible, reminding us that climate change is often discussed in numbers, but experienced in places.
I accompanied the team, documenting the expedition via written media and a short-documentary.
Features on the expedition were published in The Observer and New Mountain Magazine.
02 — Images
Images collected by Austin Bradley.
03 - The Creative Process
The creative process behind On Thin Ice began with a simple question: how could we make the scale of glacial retreat understandable beyond graphs and statistics? Working with glaciologists, highliners, photographers and local guides, we developed the idea of rigging a 57-metre highline across Sólheimajökull. One metre for every metre of ice the glacier loses in an average year.
Research, interviews, safety planning and environmental responsibility shaped every stage of production, from selecting the location to drilling temporary anchors into the ice and removing all equipment afterwards. Visually, we aimed to balance the human intimacy of the expedition with the immense scale of the landscape, documenting the physical labour, uncertainty and emotion behind the crossing.
The result is a documentary and photographic project that uses adventure as a narrative tool, transforming complex climate data into something immediate, physical and emotionally resonant.
