What: National Geographic Live: Into the Arctic Kingdom
Where: Royal Theatre
When: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 7 p.m.
Tickets: $32.50-$44.50 from rmts.bc.ca, by phone at 250-386-6121, or in person at the Royal McPherson box office
With two major research projects running concurrently — one on whales and marine ecosystems in Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula, the other on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska — Florian Schulz is not lacking in adventure.
In fact, the wildlife photographer spends eight or nine months of the year in the field, with his wife, Emil Herrera-Schulz, and two trilingual sons, Nanuk and Silvan, ages three and seven, joining him whenever possible.
“Because of the nature of my work, I didn’t see them before,” said Schulz, explaining why he decided to set up permanent residences in Mexico, Germany and Alaska. “But now they move with me. They are used to immersing themselves in new places.”
Schulz will accept an award for photographer of the year this weekend in Las Vegas, home to the annual North American Nature Photography Association gala. He will accompany his presentation, National Geographic Live: Into the Arctic Kingdom, to Victoria just days later. (Schulz didn’t enter the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition now on display at the Royal B.C. Museum.)
As someone who makes his living peering through a camera lens, the tour that brings him to Vancouver Island on Wednesday should provide him with an opportunity to rest and relax.
Or so one would think. Seeing the world with the naked eye is not Schulz’s strong suit, it seems. “My wife has been saying: ‘We need to take a vacation’ for years now,” he said with a laugh. “But it’s so hard for me to think about the idea of going somewhere where I would actually have the time to not bring a camera. I always want to be in the field. I always want to photograph.”
Born and raised in Weingarten, Germany, not far from the Swiss Alps, Schulz began tinkering with cameras when he was 11. Now 43, he never lost his wide-eyed interest in nature, and uses his persistent need to discover as the fuel for his many adventures.
“It’s not a job. It’s an obsession, a total passion. The only reason I can do it is by dedicating everything to it.”
Schulz has become well-known in photographic and conservationist circles for his work covering the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for National Geographic. Over his years documenting the area, he has seen dramatic changes to the environment, from melting permafrost to shifts in the distribution of the Arctic ocean ice. “I see it in the coastlines, where plastic is washing up in a lot more places,” he said.
He touches on these environmental shifts during his Into the Arctic Kingdom presentation, even though he would rather focus his energy on the inherent beauty of the area. “I don’t want to depress people. But I don’t want to close my eyes to these issues, either.”
Inspired by the books of Jack London and other adventure writers, Schulz headed to North America to get his photographic fix. He was just 16 when he made the journey to Alberta, for a backpacking trek through Jasper and Banff.
“North America has lured me forever. You still have the big, open landscapes that we have lost across Europe. While we have incredible histories with cities — there are ancient castles over 1,000 years old near where I was born — I was drawn to the natural history of North America. We have lost that across Europe, and you still have it.”
Schulz travelled to Victoria once before, during a promotional tour for his 2015 book, Wild Edge: Freedom to Roam the Pacific Coast, which he wrote with his wife. He is close friends with Victoria’s Ian McAllister, a fellow conservationist and film director whose IMAX debut, Great Bear Rainforest: Land of the Spirit Bear, opened last week at Victoria’s IMAX theatre. “I saw it in Toronto, but I’m definitely going to see it again next week. Your Imax theatre is one of the best in the world.”
He is constantly inspired, as McAllister was prior to filming Great Bear Rainforest, by landscapes and the animals that inhabit them. Schulz said his job is to get an image that captures the animal and its environs at the most natural junction possible. “There are a number of things that need to fall into place, but if you don’t have that concept of it ahead of time, you’ll never capture it,” he said.
One of Schulz’s greatest professional achievements was photographing a massive polar bear feeding on a fin whale carcass in Norway, near the Holmiabreen Glacier. It required him to be instinctive, to anticipate when and where its feeding habits would take the polar bear.
“Often you anticipate moments, and orchestrate the image in your mind and use your experience over the years to capture that in the most powerful way.”
