Endangered

By Erik Hijweege

Erik Hijweege (1963) is fascinated with the overwhelming power of nature. He started chasing big weather and tornadoes in 2006. Since 2013 Hijweege is also using the 19th century wet plate collodion process.

The fragility of Endangered species inspired him to use Ambrotypes (Glass positives) to photograph a selection of frozen Animals from the IUCN RED List. This project resulted in the Endangered book.

Endangered Artist's Statement

The whole Endangered project was a remarkable and sometimes shocking journey of discovery around our planet and its threatened animal species. My guide on this voyage of discovery was the IUCN’s Red List. What I find downright shocking is the fact that in 2017 there are more than 24,000 species on the list with a status ranging from vulnerable to critically endangered.

It’s just over three years ago now that I went back to the roots of photography — the 19^th century collodion process which involves pouring the emulsion on the glass plate yourself. Fascinated by the beauty of the imperfections inherent in this manual technique, I started on ‘Endangered’. The fragility of the glass and the authentic nature of the process seemed to me to fit well with the animals’ vulnerable status.

By capturing and immortalizing threatened animal species in ice I’ve put a small number of the animals on a pedestal. I hope that ‘Endangered’ will serve as an inspiration to people to be careful with our planet.

Erik Hijweege