Climate Change: Photographing the Imperceptible Crisis

Climate Change: Photographing the Imperceptible Crisis

3 min · February 2026 · Featuring Daniel Beltrá, Daniel Schwartz, James Whitlow Delano, Nichole Sobecki

The changing climate is one the most urgent concerns for our global community, and in this video, award-winning photographers Daniel Beltrá, James Whitlow Delano, Daniel Schwartz, and Nichole Sobecki discuss the ways they have used the power of photography to catalyze conversations about our environmental crisis. Born in Madrid, Spain, Daniel Beltrá is a photographer based in Seattle, Washington. His passion for conservation is evident in images of our environment that are evocatively poignant. The most striking large-scale photographs by Beltrá are images shot from the air. This perspective gives the viewer a wider context to the beauty and destruction he witnesses, as well as revealing a delicate sense of scale. After two months of photographing the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill, he produced many visually arresting images of the man-made disaster. Over the past two decades, Beltrá’s work has taken him to all seven continents, including several expeditions to the Brazilian Amazon, the Arctic, the Southern Oceans and the Patagonian ice fields. For his work on the Gulf Oil Spill, in 2011 he received the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award and the Lucie Award for the International Photographer of the Year - Deeper Perspective,. His SPILL photos toured the world independently and as part of the Prix Pictet exhibitions. In 2009, Beltrá received the prestigious Prince’s Rainforest Project award granted by Prince Charles. Other highlights include the BBVA Foundation award in 2013 and the inaugural “Global Vision Award” from the Pictures of the Year International in 2008. In 2006, 2007 and 2018 he received awards for his work in the Amazon from World Press Photo. Daniel’s work has been published by the most prominent international publications including The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Le Monde, and El Pais, amongst many others. James Whitlow Delano, b. 1960, is an American-born reportage photographer based in Tokyo, Japan, and one of today’s foremost photographers of Asia. Delano's substantial oeuvre of photography in Asia, characterized by his ethereal use of vignette and partial defocus, captures quiet subjects immersed in moments of passage. His work has appeared worldwide in numerous magazines and photo festivals, from Visa Pour L’Image to Rencontres D’Arles to Noorderlicht, and has been awarded internationally, including the Alfred Eisenstadt Award (from Columbia University and LIFE magazine), Leica’s Oskar Barnack, Picture of the Year International, NPPA, and PDN, among many others. James Whitlow Delano is a grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. His series Empire was the first ever one-person show at La Triennale di Milano Fine Arts Museum. His book “Black Tsunami: Japan 2011," published by FotoEvidence, received a 2012 PX3 Award. Daniel Schwartz graduated from Zurich School of Arts and Craft (now Zurich University of the Arts) in 1980. He concentrates on book projects, with exhibitions, based on extensive travels, photographic essays, and reportages covering the Eastern Hemisphere from Iran to East Timor, from Turkmenistan to Bangladesh. Schwartz's art is documentary; it is in the history of places. His journalism is not a reaction to events; it builds on memory. His method is best expressed in "Travelling through the Eye of History" (published, in 2009, like all his books by Thames & Hudson), a pre- and post-9/11 observation covering Central Asia including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir. Nichole Sobecki is a photographer and filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is represented internationally by the photo agency VII. Sobecki graduated from Tufts University before beginning her career in Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, focusing on regional issues related to identity, conflict, and human rights. From 2012-2015 Nichole led Agence France-Presse’s East Africa video bureau, and was a Rory Peck Awards News Finalist for her coverage of the Westgate mall attacks in Kenya. In 2018 she was awarded by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights prize in new media for her images documenting Europe's response to the African migration crisis. Nichole's work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year, the One World Media Awards, the Alexandra Boulat Award for Photojournalism, The Magenta Foundation, and The Jacob Burns Film Center, among others.