A Photography Exhibition on the Arctic, Antarctic, and Equatorial Coral Sea Wants to Wake You Up to Climate Change

We also spoke with three polar photographers about underwater photography, working with wildlife, and what it's like shooting at the poles.

On the ground floor of Lujiazui Center in Shanghai, a nature photography exhibition called Magnificent Wilderness — An Ocean Charity Photo Tour is on display. Alongside images of nature's grandeur, it shows what climate change is doing to it.

Most of the 60 photographs come from the Elysium Epic, also known as the Three Poles Project, with a few contributed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Between 2010 and 2018, the Elysium Epic Trilogy shot the Antarctic, the Arctic, and the equatorial coral seas, capturing landscapes and wildlife while documenting how climate change is reshaping all three ecosystems.

The show is divided into four sections: the Arctic, the Coral Sea, the Antarctic, and Climate Change. The Arctic section shows icebergs and polar bears. The Coral Sea section — shot around the Doberai Peninsula, Cenderawasih Bay, and the Banda Sea — shows skeleton shrimp, comb jellies, flying fish, boxfish, paper nautiluses, coral, pompano, and starfish. The Antarctic section shows penguins, elephant seals, and glaciers streaked with color from the algae trapped inside them. In the final section, Climate Change, the photographers capture icebergs calving, polar bears that starved to death, and coral bleaching.

By scanning the QR code under each photo, visitors can read the story behind the shot, written by the photographer, or a note on the environmental lesson it carries.

The exhibition hopes to draw more attention to climate change. At a talk on April 25, National Geographic photographers David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes showed the audience two photographs of Australia's Great Barrier Reef — one they shot in 2009, the other of the same reef in 2018. In the decade between the two, coral that had once been vividly colored had bleached completely white.

When ocean conditions change — especially when the water gets too warm or sunlight too intense — coral expels the algae that live inside it symbiotically. What's left is the coral's own white skeleton, stripped of its main source of nutrients. Coral colonies can recover from a bleaching event, but it can take as long as ten years. According to a climate model from UNESCO, if carbon emissions stay at current high levels, mass coral bleaching will strike twice a decade starting in 2035, and once a year after 2044.

Surface temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as the global average. The resulting loss of sea ice means fewer seals, and polar bears, which depend on seals for food, are running short of prey. A 2016 study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service predicts the Arctic's polar bear population could shrink by nearly a third over the next 35 to 41 years.

Michael Aw, a wildlife photographer and founder of the Three Poles Project, said at the talk that the polar bears he sees have been getting thinner every year, and that he now finds dead bears on every trip to the Arctic. "It's a very slow, very painful death," he said. "But it's the truth."

The photographers believe images can change things. David, National Geographic's senior photographer, sees photography as a tool for research, education, and change — he believes a beautiful photograph can help protect the environment. He once said in an interview: "We have a million scientific reasons to save a shark or a coral reef, and they're all real. But in the end, it's because they're beautiful. That's the most important reason... Photography is a way to make people see how fragile and vital our oceans are." Michael believes images carry information more reliably and truthfully than words do. Show someone a graceful, beautiful photograph of a shark, he says, and they might reconsider whether to eat shark fin soup.

As photographers, David, Jennifer, and Michael all treat "respect" as the first principle of working around nature and animals — in the water, it's the human who has entered the animal's territory. As Jennifer told QDaily: "When I go into the water, I'm doing this work as an animal in the water myself." "Since we're the ones visiting, we don't want any harm to come of it. We just want to watch how they behave, and then leave."

The exhibition is showing in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu. The Beijing run has already ended; the Shanghai show runs through May 15, and the Chengdu IFS show closes May 10.

We also spoke with three of the photographers featured in the exhibition — David, Jennifer, and Michael — about underwater photography, working around wildlife, their experiences shooting at the poles, and their views on the power of images.

Q: QDaily

David: David Doubilet, senior photographer for National Geographic, has shot and produced more than 70 stories for the National Geographic Society. Born in New York in 1946, he took up underwater photography at age 12.

Jennifer: Jennifer Hayes, a natural history writer and photographer, is a contributing photographer and writer for National Geographic specializing in marine environments. She and her husband David Doubilet have shot numerous feature stories together for the magazine. She has logged more than 11,000 hours underwater.

Michael: Michael Aw, wildlife photographer, explorer, and conservationist. Founder and director of the Three Poles Project.

Underwater Photography

Q: You've said in past interviews that getting a "perfect" shot underwater is much harder than on land. Can you talk about what makes it so difficult?

David: The first thing is time. Underwater, you don't have enough of it. If you're a photojournalist covering an event or a location, you've got the whole day — day or night, you can find the angle that works for you. But underwater, your time is extremely limited. First you have to descend, which eats up a lot of time. Then you have to ascend, which eats up more. So the time you actually have to shoot on any given dive might be ten or twenty minutes, maybe a bit more. That's the hardest part.

Second is light. There is natural light underwater, but a lot of it gets absorbed by the water, so you need artificial light.

Third is the marine life itself — you can't talk to it, you can't pay it to pose, and you have absolutely no way to predict what it's going to do.

And on top of that, you're diving with a camera this big strapped to you.

Q: Is underwater photography also about the "decisive moment" — capturing an instant?

David: It's like photography on land. You wait for the best moment, the decisive one. You get there, you wait, you shoot a little, you shoot some more, and sometimes you still miss it. You need patience — patience, and the reflex to press the shutter the instant it happens.

Q: Is there preparation you need to do before getting in the water?

David: For every hour you spend underwater, you need roughly three hours of preparation.

Every time you shoot underwater, there's a long list of gear to check. First you check the diving equipment is complete, then the camera — not just the body and lens, but the housing, the camera battery, the strobe battery. And that's just for the test shoot. Before the real shoot, you run a test. Then when it's time for the actual shoot, you do all those steps again.

Oh, and one more thing — you also have to get yourself there, by plane, by boat.

Q: Jennifer, as someone with a graduate research background in zoology and marine ecology — your doctoral work focused on sturgeon — did you come to photography from an academic angle?

Jennifer: Between the two of us, our perspectives are different. We use the same cameras, the same lighting, but we see things differently. He looks at them poetically. I look at them scientifically. I record behavior. He sees with an artist's eye — he feels the light, he understands what light does in the water. I calculate. In my head, I'm running equations for how far I am from something — I'm literally doing math.

He's an artist. I'm a scientist. I'm looking for behavior. He sees things poetically. I want to tell the story through science; what he wants to say is a little different. Between the two of us, our angle and our approach are very different.

David: I'll add — very few people can photograph with the kind of knowledge and method Jennifer brings to it.

Jennifer: Science gives you an edge. You know what an animal will do, why, where, and when, because you've studied it — you know what's likely to happen there during that particular window. But for a photographer, being in the right place to catch it happening is a lucky accident.

Q: If you can predict an animal's behavior, does that take away some of the fun of shooting?

Jennifer: There's always hope. First — even though you know more than most people, that doesn't mean you'll stop being surprised. Underwater, there's never a shortage of surprises. You're always learning more. Every time, you learn something science didn't already know. The more time you spend shooting, the more you learn, and it expands what's already known.

It's a loop. Just when you think you know how something is going to play out, something unexpected happens. Then you realize that's a behavior pattern too, and now you know more, and it might come in useful the next time you're in the water. Every time, you learn something — when they arrive, how long they stay, when they leave, what the females do, what the males do, what the predators do. The more knowledge and photographs you have, the bigger a story you can tell.

Q: I noticed David often uses gear that shoots both above and below the surface at once. That combination of the two worlds is remarkable — coral reefs below, skyscrapers above; seals on the surface, ice below the water. You seem to particularly love this angle — is that right?

David: Jennifer says it's my signature image. (This kind of photo is called a "split," or half-and-half shot.) I love it because it merges two worlds beautifully — one entirely air, one entirely water — and the only thing separating them is a single line down the middle of the frame. That kind of photograph is wonderful. But it's a real challenge to shoot. To get a split shot, you have to reconcile two completely different scenes, above and below, through two different mediums. You need strobes to light the underwater half, then bring down the exposure for the half above water, and get both halves in focus at once. And you need a very large dome port. There's no shortcut to this kind of photograph.

Q: Do you also get a split shot in a single take?

Jennifer: No Photoshop. That's the reality. National Geographic requires you to submit the raw file. You're not even allowed to remove a water droplet from the image — you can do color correction and adjust saturation, but that's it. So yes, it's all captured in one shot.

Q: Beyond the specialized knowledge, do you do any physical preparation in daily life for this kind of polar expedition work? Do you train like an athlete?

Jennifer: I do, yes. David trains less.

But exercise really does help with this work. A shoot usually runs 20 to 30 days, and during the shoot itself the intensity is already so high that we don't train at all. But between assignments, some conditioning definitely helps — going to the gym for endurance and breathing work. You have to build endurance to conserve your air, the air in your tank when you're down there. If you're out of shape, you'll burn through your air fast. We want a standard tank to last at least 90 minutes.

Q: Working for long stretches in places almost no one visits — does it feel like a "lonely" job?

Jennifer: No!

David: No!

Jennifer: You miss your family, but you never feel lonely. There's too much to do on an assignment to have time to feel lonely. The two of us work together, as a team, so we're together the whole day. If someone at home is sick, that weighs on you — my mother is 95, and I always worry about her. But on assignment, none of that touches you, because you're always in the middle of it: dive, download, shoot, sleep, wake up, eat, download, eat...

The Danger Isn't the Wildlife — It's You

Q: Some of David's photographs look genuinely dangerous, including one of a great white shark with its jaws wide open at the lens. Have there been moments that felt truly dangerous?

David: Shooting can be a fairly dangerous process. But the real danger doesn't come from marine life — it comes from yourself. Underwater, you're constantly wanting one more shot, one more good frame. Sometimes an animal changes its behavior right when you want to be there for it. But you might be low on air. In deep water, you also don't have much slack in your decompression time. That's when it gets dangerous.

Q: What about danger from the animals themselves, from nature?

Jennifer: When I go into the water, I'm doing this work as an animal in the water myself. If an animal comes close, that's actually good for the shot. It might swim right up to the lens — sometimes you can even see it "smiling," which is wonderful. When it's being aggressive — sharks, crocodiles, seals — you can sense that aggression. With a shark, for instance: when it's relaxed and calm, its pectoral fins are flat. If it's feeling aggressive, it raises them. If that happens, you get out of the water as fast as you can — that's the best outcome for both you and the animal.

Why? Because if that animal hurts one of us, it gets killed for having hurt a person. We're the visitors here — we don't want any harm to come of it. We just want to see how they behave, and then leave.

David: And when we're working with great whites, we go in back-to-back.

Jennifer: When we're working with aggressive predators, we have a strategy — go into the water back-to-back. That way we get a full 360-degree view. If there are too many predators in the water, we get out.

Q: Can you share an underwater shoot that left a deep impression on you?

David: My most unforgettable experience was, without question, the Okavango Delta.

In Botswana, in Africa — hardly anyone dives there, because everyone goes to Africa to see the migrations on land. Very few people have seen what's underwater in Africa. So that trip meant bringing our full dive kit — fins, even the lead weights, all of it. There is simply so much to see in Africa. We went to shoot freshwater crocodiles, but we also saw elephants — in the river, swimming right past us. And hippos, huge spiders, water snakes.

Jennifer: We worked underwater in Africa with Nile crocodiles, in the Okavango Delta in Botswana — that was the most unforgettable of all, dangerous and unforgettable at once.

David: And beautiful.

Jennifer: No one dives in Botswana. We had to fly there with all our gear. Everyone goes to Africa to watch the great migration; we wanted to see what was underwater. We had so many extraordinary encounters there, wild encounters — crocodiles, hippos, elephants swimming right in front of us.

Q: Elephants can swim?

Jennifer: They breathe through their trunks like a snorkel, so you might see the whole body submerged with just the trunk above the surface.

David: Elephants love water. They're the heaviest animals on land, but in the water they have buoyancy, so they get genuinely happy once they're in — they'll drink a huge amount of water, they roll around underwater. Sometimes they keep their eyes open underwater. Their skin is sensitive, so underwater they rub themselves against the riverbed — that's actually how they clean themselves, how they bathe. It's like watching a kid let loose in a hotel pool with no one supervising — pure joy.

Q: Was Botswana so unforgettable because of the biodiversity? You both sound genuinely excited just describing what you saw.

Jennifer: Because what you see in Africa is unlike anywhere else — full of challenge, full of danger. Africa gets into your soul. Imagine surfacing and seeing elephants, giraffes, or zebras, when moments earlier you were underwater working alongside Zambezi catfish. It's bizarre, wonderful. Underwater you can see hippo footprints too, and that's when things get tense — hippos are genuinely dangerous, especially a mother with a calf. Seeing a small footprint next to a big one makes you even more nervous, because a mother hippo is fiercely protective and will attack.

Upstream from where that river runs through Botswana, they're building a dam, and it may affect the water supply for wildlife in the area, because that river is their only source of water.

Q: You're a wildlife photographer, and animals are difficult and often dangerous to photograph. I saw an interview online where you said, "I'm the only one who has gotten this close to a polar bear and lived to tell the story." Using polar bears as an example, can you talk about how you actually photograph an animal like that?

Michael: For photographing wild animals, the most important thing is respect — respecting the distance between you and it. And you must never keep pushing that limit, testing it further and further — that's a form of disrespect. The only time that boundary can be crossed is when the animal chooses to approach you.

I've survived encounters with polar bears, whales, crocodiles — I believe it's because I'm kind to them, the way they've been kind to me. I talk to polar bears. I'll say to one, "Good to see you — please let me get a few more photos of you! You can pick up my camera, do whatever you want." You need to talk to the animal. Communicating with an animal is possible. If you speak to it from the heart, it can sense that, and it can pick up on your goodwill. You can tell a shark, or any animal, what you want. They can feel it. They know. People don't believe it, but you really can do this. There are dolphin whisperers now, dog whisperers — I'm 100 percent certain you can talk to animals.

Q: What do you mean by "that limit"?

Michael: Maintaining a distance the animal itself feels is safe. If an animal comes toward you, you stand still — that's fine. But if you turn and run, or back away, that makes things much worse — the animal reads it as a signal that you can be attacked. Stay still instead, and it will get curious, and circle around to look at you.

A Picture Is More Reliable Than Being Told

Q: Do you really believe photography can get people to think about environmental protection? "Environmental protection" gets said so often, it's on everyone's lips, but few people actually change anything because of it. Do you think photography can genuinely change something?

Michael: I believe it can. I believe in the power of a photograph — I believe images can change things, or drive change. Why?

When you're a child, you're pure — you don't know anything yet. As we grow up, we're shaped by society and the people around us. Take shark fin, for example: if your family has told you since childhood that shark fin is fine to eat, you'll think eating it is fine. But if I show you a photograph of a shark, tell you it's an elegant creature that deserves to live freely in the water, and show you a photo of a person and a shark together — proof that the person wasn't attacked, wasn't eaten — that plants a seed. If one photo isn't enough, I'll show you two, three. Enough information accumulates, and eventually it will get someone to believe what I'm trying to convey.

Seeing is believing — a photograph is more reliable and truthful information than being told something. If someone goes there themselves, they might believe it even more. But we need this tool to let more people know, or see.

Q: Does the process of shooting itself do some damage to nature?

Michael: That's a good question. Plenty of scientists are already studying the impact our presence, as an "invasive" species, has on nature. But first, back to "respect." When you approach a wild animal's territory, when you step into its home, if it doesn't like you, it leaves — it simply won't be there. So when we're in their home, we need to be reverent. Whether we're in the ocean or the forest, no matter how careful we are, we're going to cause some damage.

Say the Great Wall can handle 100,000 visitors a year. People see the photos and come — if suddenly a billion people showed up, the Great Wall could collapse. There's a park in Cuba that was designated a national park back in the 1960s, and it only opens 1,000 slots a year. That's a genuine, reasoned assessment of what the resource can bear. If they opened 100,000 slots, it could do irreversible damage to the environment. So they cap it at 1,000 — not that 1,000 people cause zero damage, but the damage is far smaller. And the photographs those 1,000 people bring back can be shown to everyone else — the work they produce, and the value of sharing it, can help far more people understand the ecosystem and the environment.

Q: You've said "what we're able to leave for the future depends on what we do now." What do you think ordinary people like us can actually do?

Michael: On the environment, no one can say they do everything. But everyone can do something, and every small change adds up to a big one. As for me, I'm not a vegetarian — I love bacon too much. But I can limit myself to bacon just one day a week. You could choose an electric car. You could give up plastic and use a ceramic spoon instead.

I also love telling people this: buy the expensive thing. Because then you'll take care of it, use it longer, use it more often — it has a longer life. Cheap things tend to get thrown away fast. These are all small things, small choices. Give yourself a small goal, and life gets more meaningful.

Cover image: Jennifer Hayes's Comfort, shot in the Arctic. Unless otherwise noted, the cover image and images within this piece are courtesy of the Magnificent Wilderness exhibition.