Elena Cremona is a German born photographer with roots in Italy, London and San Francisco, with a degree in Fine Art Photography from the prestigious Arts University Bournemouth. The content of her work centers around social documentary, environmental portraiture and landscape reportage; Often experimenting with a variety of abstract techniques in their formulation. Underlying notions within her work is the exploration of distant memories and the feeling of Nostalgia, as well as increasing problematic social and environmental issues such as the destruction of nature and its irreplaceable landscapes.
’Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth’’ – Albert Schweitzer
The argument of nature’s resource exploitation and excavation, as well as the destruction and environmental devastation of landscapes, has long been one of high concern. However the environmental effects of this are not always so visible or apparent. The power of images has proven itself many times, through either activism or conservation photography in the style of photojournalism or documentation. Photography influences the viewer’s mind and teaches about the issues presented in the image – it is the idea that it portrays something real and therefore true, and inherently has the ability to document a perceived reality.
Through Elena Cremona’s environmental landscape photography, she highlights the power of photography and its ability to expose certain aspects that viewer’s might not see otherwise, such as the terrifying beauty of our ever-changing landscape, the destruction of our earth and the ideas of the Sublime. It is the contemporary version of the Sublime Elena finds compelling, a strange beauty born of environmental degradation.
Iceland is one of the fastest-warming places on the planet. The glaciers that cover more than 10 percent of the island are losing an average of 11 billion tons of ice a year.
Driving around the south coast of Iceland, Elena has witnessed the immense retreat of glaciers, revealing only gravel for miles, creating a different kind of landscape: new black lava cliffs.
Climate change is heavily affecting Iceland as it is rising due to the accelerated melting of ice caps, resulting in the uplifting from the Earth at a rate of up to 1.4 inches per year, causing more and more volcanic eruptions.
Through photographic documentation, Elena reveals the immense beauty that is Iceland, so unique and other worldly, to raise awareness for this diminishing and ever-changing country.
To view more of Elena’s work please visit her website.