Tom Hegen used to want to photograph untouched nature. Until he realized: they actually don’t exist anymore. So he started documenting climate change. A story of beauty and cruelty.
Climate change has never looked so beautiful. Brown coal mining becomes an eye-catcher, you want to hang the photos of dry riverbeds in your living room. Anyone looking at Tom Hegen’s pictures will realize that the Anthropocene can be very aesthetic if you distance yourself enough from it. Because that is exactly what the aerial photographer does when he approaches a subject. He captures his images from many meters up, at a 90-degree angle to the earth’s surface. This creates an unusual – and surprisingly appealing – perspective.