A Focus On Nature, Advent Calendar, Now for Nature
AFON
Elizabeth White to NowforNature – Samanta Norbury-Webster
Welcome to our 2016 Advent Calendar series (#AFONAdvent)! This year, our theme is “The Gift of Inspiration”. For each day, one of our members has written a blog post about someone who has inspired them, and how that inspiration has lead to them being where they are today. Each member is a shining example of a young person who is acting Now for Nature. We hope that you enjoy the series and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
With the recent release of the much anticipated Planet Earth II it is remarkably difficult to pick just one hero from all the talented people that help make a documentary series possible but there is one person who really stands out for me, Elizabeth White. Although my passion is on the technical side of the camera Elizabeth’s experience blows me away. She is a specialist on all things Frozen Planet; filming in Canada, Alaska, Svalbard, Russia, Antarctica she is no stranger to working in extreme environments, the very environments that make my heart pound.
Elizabeth White – Filmmaker with BBC Natural History Unit
Planet Earth II: Islands showed us just how intrepid Elizabeth has to be as she travelled to Zavodovski Island, an active volcano in the South Atlantic Ocean, to film a penguin colony beaten and bloodied by a horrific but characteristic storm that almost left the crew stranded. In this sort of environment you need to be strong, not only physically to withstand the elements but also you need to be clear headed enough to direct a team in both their creative endeavours and to ensure their safety whilst operating from a remote base camp.
In Planet Earth II diaries she shows a steady stoicism yet she doesn’t hide how difficult her work can be as she faces the raw reality of the natural world she is helping us experience. The pain and suffering of the penguins is hidden from us for the most part in the final cut considered too distressing for a mainstream audience, a decision I respect, yet she reminds us that this line of work does involve working with the natural world at its most uncaring. Death is only around the corner.
I graduated in 2011 having specialised heavily in mapping glacial retreat and climate change marginally disillusioned with public engagement in pure academia and ready to make a difference to the world. Frozen Planet played a pivotal in what I decided to do next; from photography to TV I turned my attention to bringing a bit of wildlife into our nation’s living rooms whilst pushing myself to understand more about the plants, animals and people that inhabit the most extreme parts of our globe.
Puffin (c) Samanta Norbury-Webster
Today I turn up to work every day at a television production office to work on a wide range of factual programming but I remember what and, more importantly, who brought me here and although I am not at the Natural History Unity yet I will be one day.
Elizabeth proves to me that there is a place in the world for the career I developed in my head a long time ago whilst staring out to sea from the cliffs of my Cornish fishing village, before I knew much about anything. I see a future for myself where I can combine my love for nature, biology, arctic climates, photography and expedition. I don’t know if there is room in her world for me but she has given me something to aspire to.
Samanta Norbury-Webster
I consider her amongst my modern day heroes alongside Felicity Aston (NatGeo Explorer), Doug Allen (extra-ordinary cameraman), Sophie Darlington (noted wildlife camera operator), Justine Evans (truly wild camera op), my glaciology lecturer Prof Christopher Caseldine and the entirely of both the BBC’s Natural History Unit and the British Antarctic Survey.
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