Photographing the Beauty of the North

2 months ago 9

Today is the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, which was organized in 1970 to remember and appreciate the environment, and our responsibilities and roles within it. On such a day, I thought it would be appropriate to feature some of the remarkable work of Olivier Morin, a photographer with Agence France-Presse, who spends a great deal of time capturing beautiful images of the natural world, largely focusing on northern climates. Gathered below are some of Morin’s photos of the people, animals, and landscapes of the Earth’s arctic and subarctic regions.

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An orca whale is seen swimming in a dark ocean, photographed underwater.

This underwater picture shows a female killer whale with scars near its dorsal fin, patrolling near Skjervøy Fjord, in northern Norway within the Arctic Circle, on November 11, 2024. Dozens of killer whales and their clans follow schools of herring gathering in the fjords of northern Norway from October to January, on the hunt. More frequent northerly sightings suggest that orcas are learning to adapt to the rapidly melting waters of the Arctic Ocean. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A polar bear shakes off water while standing on rocks.

A polar bear shakes off after swimming behind a pod of beluga whales passing near the shoreline of Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, on August 9, 2022. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A pony stands under the northern lights, which are forming a greenish light display in the sky.

A pony stands under the northern lights on September 30, 2018, in Unstad, Norway. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

Several hundred reindeer swim as a herd across a broad ocean fjord.

Several hundred reindeer swim across Jøkelfjord, on their way to their winter pastures in northern Norway, on September 14, 2023. The herds cross fjords, climb mountains, and swim between glaciers before arriving at their winter pastures in the Norwegian Far North. The Sami follow their animals by quad, on foot or by boat. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A close view of a dense herd of reindeer, featuring many fuzzy antlers

A herd of reindeer forms a tight pack before starting to swim across a fjord in Reinfjord, Norway, on September 15, 2023. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A wolverine looks for food in the Finnish taiga in the Hukkajarvi area of eastern Finland on July 4, 2023. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

An enormous iceberg drifts along a mountainous coastline.

An enormous iceberg drifts along the Scoresby Sound Fjord in Eastern Greenland, seen on August 16, 2023. At the time, the French National Center for Scientific Research was undertaking an expedition to explore Greenland's isolated fjords, the planet's largest fjord system, which remains dramatically understudied. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A person wearing a parka with a fur-rimmed hood rides in a dog sled behind a pack of dogs on a snow-covered frozen body of water.

The Inuit professional bear hunter Martin Madsen, 28, closes his eyes as he rides his dog sled over very soft snow, back from the ice edge where sea ice meets the open ocean, in Ittoqqortoormiit on the frozen Scoresby Sound Fjord on April 25, 2024. The village of Ittoqqortoormitt, with its colorful houses and 350 inhabitants, is located near the Strait of Scoresby, the world's largest fjord system, along the east coast of Greenland. All the men are hunters—bears if they're professionals, seals, narwhals, or musk oxen if they're amateurs. It's an ancestral way of life handed down from generation to generation. But over the past 20 years, climate change and quotas have gradually jeopardized a tradition that ensures the survival of Inuit families. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

Vapor rises from the water in a harbor, seen at sunrise.

Vapor rises from the water around a historic tri-master charter sailing ship moored in a port of Oslo, Norway, on January 5, 2024, as morning sun paints the scene in golden light. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A close view of a beluga whale swimming right at the water's surface.

A beluga whale swims in Hudson Bay, outside Churchill, northern Canada, on August 9, 2022. Under the slightly murky surface where the waters of the Churchill River meet Hudson Bay, the belugas have a great time in front of amazed tourists, several thousand of whom come every year to the small town of Churchill to observe them. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A swimming polar bear pokes its head out of the water.

A polar bear swims while hunting a beluga whale along the coast of Hudson Bay on August 9, 2022. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A picturesque fishing village on a rocky shoreline, backdropped by dramatic, steep mountains, all covered in a dusting of snow.

The fishing village of Hamnøy, seen in the Norway's Lofoten archipelago on February 19, 2025. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A wolf runs in a forest meadow in Hukkajarvi, eastern Finland, on May 16, 2022. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A distant view of a person pulling a sled on a snow-covered frozen body of water, under a gray-white sky.

A man goes ice-fishing on the frozen sea near Vaasa during a "white day" in Finland's Kvarken archipelago, on January 29, 2022. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A person in a swimsuit wades into the surf, with snow-covered mountains in the background.

A young woman takes a quick dip in Unstad, northern Norway, on March 11, 2018. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A woman throws a rope in a herd of reindeer, trying to lasso one of them.

Merete Gaup, the mother of Sami herder Ante Niillas Gaup, dressed in traditional Sami attire, lassoes young reindeer to identify them with a mark on their ear, in Reinfjord, Norway, on September 15, 2023. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

A distant view of a polar bear walking a rocky shoreline with an enormous glacier taking up the entire background.

A hungry polar bear looks for prey along the shore, near Pyramiden, Svalbard, on September 21, 2021. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

The free diver Arthur Guerin-Boeri swims close to an orca in the Arctic Ocean near Norway's Spildra Island, on January 27, 2023. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

An orca splashes at the surface as it swims after prey, with snow-covered mountains in the distance.

An orca chases herring in the Reisafjorden-fjord region on January 17, 2019. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

Water flows in a small stream from a melting iceberg.

Water flows from a melting iceberg in Scoresby Fjord, Greenland, seen on August 12, 2023. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty

An over-under view of a person standing in chest-deep water, harvesting kelp, seen underwater

Angelita Eriksen, a co-founder of Lofoten Seaweed, picks up winged kelp in the cold water of the Atlantic Ocean in Vareid, near Flakstad, in the Lofoten Islands on March 4, 2024. The daughter of a Norwegian fisherman, Eriksen joined forces with New Zealand-born Tamara Singer, whose Japanese mother served seaweed with almost every meal, to start the company Lofoten Seaweed, which specializes in harvesting and preparing seaweed for the food industry. The pair focus on about 10 types of seaweed, long eaten in Japan and ever more popular in Europe for their nutritional qualities. #

Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty