Ragnar Axelsson

Iceland

For over 40 years, Ragnar Axelsson, also known as Rax, has been capturing the people, animals, and landscapes of the most remote regions of the Arctic, including Iceland, Siberia, and Greenland. His stark black-and-white photography reveals the elemental human experience at the edge of the habitable world. Through his lens, Ragnar highlights the extraordinary relationships between Arctic inhabitants and their extreme environment—relationships now undergoing profound and complex changes due to unprecedented climate change.

Ragnar began his career as a photojournalist at Morgunblaðið (1976–2020) and has worked on freelance assignments across Greenland, Latvia, Lithuania, Mozambique, South Africa, China, Ukraine and Russia. His photographs have appeared in renowned publications such as LIFE, Newsweek, Stern, GEO, National Geographic, Time, and Polka and have been exhibited internationally.

To date, Ragnar has published seven books in various international editions. His latest work, Jökull (Glacier), was published in 2018 with a foreword by Ólafur Elíasson. His earlier book, Andlit Norðursins (The Face of the North), published in 2016 with a foreword by Mary Ellen Mark, won the 2016 Icelandic Literary Prize for non-fiction.

Throughout his career, Ragnar has received numerous accolades, including several Icelandic Photojournalist Awards, an Honorable Mention for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the Grand Prize at Photo de Mer, Vannes, and Iceland’s highest honor, the Order of the Falcon, Knight’s Cross.
Currently, Ragnar is engaged in a significant five-year project documenting life across all eight Arctic countries. In this pivotal moment, as climate change irreversibly alters the physical and cultural landscapes of the Arctic, Ragnar is bearing witness to the immediate threats posed by global warming on these communities’ survival.

Hjelmer Hammeken, a hunter from Ittoqqortoormiit, rows his boat while seal hunting in the Scoresby Sound fjord, or Kangertittivaq as it is called. The photo was taken in March 2015, and at this time of year, the fjord was usually frozen with solid sea ice on which hunters traveled by dog sled.

There was a look of concern on Hjelmer’s face, and when asked if I could grant him one wish, what would he wish for? The answer came immediately: “Give me 25 years back, when the sea ice was thick and reliable.”

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