Working with climate change
Floods have plagued humanity since Noah collected animals two by two. While modern deluges are not as biblical in destruction, they are becoming increasingly devastating
Greg Langley
© Gideon Mendel
For the past eight years, Gideon Mendel has been strapping on waders, grabbing his old Rolleiflex cameras and walking into floodwaters around the globe to create beautiful portraits of victims standing before the remains of their homes.
Known for work in National Geographic , Fortune Magazine , Condé Naste Traveler and Geo , Mendel first came to international attention in the for documenting apartheid. Drowning World is his response to climate change and he aims to take viewers beyond statistics and into the lives of people directly affected by the swirling waters. Water and its relation to people, particularly their jobs, is celebrated by this year’s UN World Water Day on March 22.
“To be honest, I have come to love the quietness of a flooded city,” he confesses. “Water where water shouldn’t be is rich material for a photographer. Normality is suspended and the reflections in the water make everything reversed and upside down.”
GIDEON MENDEL
Born:, Johannesburg, South Africa
Awards: 6 x World Press Photo awards, 1 x Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography, 1 x Amnesty International prize for journalism
Floods covered: 14 different floods in 12 twelve countries, including Australia, Brazil, Pakistan and the United States
As the climate warms, scientists say, we should expect the risk of destructive floods to increase. Forecasts see global insured losses from flooding increasing six-fold to $54 billion per year, or greater, by. That’s up from an annual average of $9 billion over the past decade.
Mendel acknowledges he has a political agenda. “I am committed to issues around climate change. I am trying to provoke public consciousness and I believe images which speak powerfully do this more effectively.”
The results are serene portraits of people caught at a point of vulnerability, but staring back at the camera with an accusatory stare, as if challenging the viewer to deny their lifestyle has a role in the tragedy.
“I have been asked about making ascetic images out of people’s trauma and tragedy,” says Mendel. “I believe powerful images are more than a documentary of a situation, they try to capture the essence of a person in a traumatized context.”
He also notes that the images are not taken at the point of crisis, but afterwards as people wait for the floodwaters to recede. All were willing to be photographed, as if they wanted a witness to record the tragedy.
“I’m a father of two boys,” explains Mendel of his motivation, “and I think in terms of climate change I’ll probably be okay, but I’m really worried about how the world will be in 30 years’ time for my children. The scary thing is, if global temperatures go up more than two degrees, we are in uncharted territory and nobody knows the outcomes.”
