2015 Presentation: Carsten Peter

Most people run away from tornadoes and spewing volcanoes, but photographer, filmmaker, biologist and adventurer Carsten Peter actually seeks out natural disasters. The regular National Geographic contributor and World Press Photo award winner is renowned for chasing images in the most extreme and inhospitable conditions that nature can conjure.

As a photographer, Peter is obsessed with capturing never-before-seen images, which has propelled him to explore landscapes that sane people would avoid. His projects have led him to brave toxic caverns and acid waterfalls to shoot within the deepest ice shafts on Earth, rappel into active volcanoes with turbulent lava lakes and break altitude records while flying his motorized paraglider. He has scuba dived in a glacier on Mont Blanc, crossed the Sahara on a camel, ventured deep into Borneo caves and chased twisters across America.

In addition to the World Press award for his tornado images, he has received an Emmy Award for his videography from inside an active volcano in the South Pacific.

Peter’s talk, titled “Extreme Planet,” will focus on some of the many forbidding places he has photographed.