Glaciers of Southern Norway

Glaciers of Southern Norway contains aerial photographs of virtually every glacier in the southern half of Norway—including Jostedalsbreen, the largest glacier on continental Europe. Shot from an antique aircraft at slow speeds and low altitudes, the book offers an intimate perspective on ice that is, for most people, effectively unreachable: many of these glaciers lie deep in roadless valleys, guarded by weather, terrain, and long approaches that only the most skilled and determined hikers ever attempt. Often described as “forbidden views,” these images capture what the ground rarely grants—complete glacier systems seen as living geometry: crevasse fields, séracs, meltwater braids, blue shadowed basins, and the hard edges where snow turns to ice and ice returns to rock. The author methodically flew the mountains and fjordlands, searching each drainage for remaining ice, assembling a comprehensive portrait of southern Norway’s glaciated landscape. Created as part of the Global Glacier Initiative—a long-term effort to photograph Earth’s glaciers before they disappear—this work is both an art book and a catalog: a record of shared climatic and geological history preserved at a moment that will not repeat. What looks eternal from a distance is, in reality, transient. Many of the glaciers documented here are shrinking year by year, and some will not survive the century. The book is organized by geographic regions and supported by detailed maps that pinpoint the location of each photograph. Images were taken in summer to reveal the glaciers in their finest detail, free of winter snow cover, allowing the textures and structure of the ice to speak for themselves.