In 1984, while working as a Production Manager on the SANTA CLAUS film starring Dudley Moore and John Lithgow, I lived in Greenland for about 5 months. Mainly based on the northwest coast in and around Illulisat but also in Nuuk, the Capitol. It was a unique and wonderful experience to get to know this unusual and special place as well as get to know many Greenlanders whose ancestors have successfully lived and survived in Greenland's harsh arctic conditions for thousands of years. When I was first there, I had the good fortune to spend several weeks doing a location scout of almost the entire west coast of Greenland in a chartered Greenland Air helicopter, taking thousands of "visual information photos" of Greenland's rugged spectacular beauty. Up on the ice cap, along the coast and out over the sea ice. The 500 or so photos in this book were never meant to be perfectly framed, taken in perfect weather or to be "pretty". The purpose of film location scout photos is to provide visual information. The photos were taken in a hovering, vibrating helicopter, in all the many types of weather present up and down the west coast of Greenland in early Spring. Sometimes the weather would totally change in the space of a few minutes. Sometimes we were suddenly in "White Out" conditions. Sometimes, the photos were taken in dim twilight at the end of a long day. When the weather along the coast of Greenland gets misty, which it often does, the whitish air blends with Greenland's all-white surfaces to create a sort of monochrome dreamlike feeling. But, in a way, the constantly changing weather and lighting conditions are an integral part of the actual Greenland ambiance, and capturing that in the photos lends authenticiy. Unlike photography via dogsled, boat or trekking on the ground, helicopter photography has an extreme flexibility. One moment, you're up on the ice cap, the next moment hovering over an impassable mass of crushed ice, and a few minutes later, out over the sea ice amongst huge icebergs. Greenland's scale is immense. The ice cap is about 1500 miles north to south, 500 to 600 miles wide and at it's center, 2 miles thick. If the Greenland ice cap were ever to completely melt, the entire world's oceans would rise 23 or so feet. Huge mountains, often carved by the slowly moving flow of ice, are ubiquitous, making it impossible for Greenlanders to build roads between their various cities and towns. Some of the icebergs can be gigantic. In 2015, the Illulisat Glacier calved an iceberg almost a mile thick with a surface area of almost 5 square miles. I hope these photographs encourage people to visit Greenland. There is an excellent infrastructure with comfortable hotels, tasty food (especially seafood!) and regular Greenland Air helicopter and fixed wing flights to all the towns. As well as a very friendly and fun-loving bunch of Greenlanders!

本作は映画『サンタクロース』のロケハン記録を超え、極地の真実を刻むドキュメントです。ヘリから捉えた写真は振動や天候の豹変を封じ込め、数千年を生き抜く人々と圧倒的な氷床が織りなす「生」の質量を伝えます。自然の猛威と神秘が同居する、グリーンランドの本質を鋭く突く一冊です。 映画が描く甘美な夢に対し、本書はその「地平」を支える情熱的な骨組みです。メルヘンな北極点に、巨大な氷塊やホワイトアウトという「現実の解像度」を補完し、虚構と現実の境界を埋めています。両者を味わうことで、物語の背後にある壮大なスケールと自然への敬意をより深く体感できるでしょう。