31 march 2025, Wouter van den Eijkel
Alone with the icebergs | Signs of change: Olaf Otto Becker
If no motorboats are rented to tourists because the rental company fears the boat won’t return, that says enough. Turn back because this is life-threatening. But that didn’t stop Olaf Otto Becker. This German photographer decided instead to import a rubber boat to photograph the melting glaciers along Greenland’s west coast.
The west coast is where climate change first became visible. Every day, large sections of glaciers collapse into the sea and drift away as icebergs. Through Becker’s lens, they become floating sculptures, perfectly mirrored in the ripple-free waters of the Arctic Ocean. His compositions are both poetic and alarming. Work from his series "Ilulissat", "Above Zero" and "Broken Line" can now be seen at Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen.
More than 20 years before climate change dominated the news, Olaf Otto Becker had already heard about it. In the late 1990s, Becker photographed a glacier in Iceland for an assignment. Even back then, he was focusing on landscapes that were directly or indirectly altered by human activity. When he returned to the glacier three years later, it was already much smaller. Wondering how this was possible, the local population introduced Becker to a phenomenon that was new to him at the time: global warming.
Becker quickly saw the global scale of this development. Back in Germany, he devised a project linking landscape photography to the theme of climate change using a scientific approach. He would sail along all the glaciers on Greenland’s west coast, capture them with his large-format camera and record the GPS coordinates so that someone, 50 or 100 years in the future, could document the changes.
Olaf Otto Becker, Ilulissat 13 (Diptych), Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Alone with the icebergs
And the result is impressive. Especially when the icebergs are printed in large format, as they are now at Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen. With the empty horizon and diffused light, the viewer has no point of reference — not for the time of day when Becker took the picture or the scale of the icebergs. The icebergs simply emerge. They are, in fact, floating sculptures, perfectly reflected in the ripple-free, dark grey water of the Arctic Ocean.
What you do immediately realise is that this is a project that almost no one would dare to undertake. The photographs are so still you can almost hear the ice cracking, making it clear that no one else is around, with no one to disrupt this serene experience – but also no one to save you if something goes wrong. You are alone with the icebergs.
4000 km, solo
For the series "Ilulissat" and "Broken Line", Becker travelled solo for 4,000 km along Greenland’s west coast over five years in a rubber motorboat. Sailing among the icebergs is so dangerous that in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, boats are not rented to tourists. “They are afraid the renter won’t survive and the boat won’t return,” Becker explains during the exhibition opening. But Becker was not easily deterred — he imported a rubber motorboat and worked with several Inuit who helped him build it and taught him the intricacies of navigating an ocean filled with icebergs.
Olaf Otto Becker, Ilulissat 52, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
IJswater
Yet an iceberg nearly cost Becker his life. Shortly after setting off on his first journey along the ice fjords, he collided with an iceberg and was thrown overboard. His boat drifted 200 metres away. It took him 15 minutes to swim through the icy water to reach it. He then climbed aboard via the motor and, hypothermic and with a few cracked ribs, sailed 200 kilometres to the nearest village.
It’s a heroic story, but Becker only mentions it in passing. His focus is on documenting the effects of climate change in a way that not only produces beautiful images, but also has scientific validity. And that requires a boat.
Above Zero
In 2005, Becker wanted to photograph the last part of the west coast. He flew over Greenland to retrieve his boat and saw cobalt-blue rivers and lakes forming from melting snow and ice through his airplane window. These were not normal rivers, as normal rivers would flow somewhere — these simply ended. During that flight, Becker realised he wasn’t finished in Greenland and decided to create another series about the meltwater rivers and lakes in Greenland’s interior.
Olaf Otto Becker, Above Zero, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
The project, which would become "Above Zero", was not without challenges. Becker did not take a helicopter, but instead chose to walk there with a guide. “I want to experience the landscape’s transformation, not just step out somewhere,” Becker explains. He insisted on shooting in the summer when the snow and ice were melting, but the Greenlanders he consulted advised against it. The reason? It was too dangerous. In summer, the ground becomes soft and unreliable — you can fall through the ice or get stuck with your sled.
Just as he had done five years earlier, Becker persevered and found a guide, “someone who wasn’t interested in photography, but in adventure.” Each pulled a 90-kilogram sled for a month, entering a world with its own unique palette of white, black (from air pollution) and turquoise. “It was so quiet, the only thing you could hear was your own heartbeat — there is no one there, not even animals.” Anyone who has seen these photos gets a good sense of this.
