National Geographic photographer Carsten Peter speaks in Calgary
Two-time World Press Photo award winner has braved toxic caverns, acid waterfalls and superheated lava lakes
Rappelling into active volcanoes, venturing deep into crystallized caves and chasing monster storms in Tornado Alley — it's all in a day's work for award-winning photographer and filmmaker Carsten Peter.
"I love to be surprised by the situations, and of course I try to reduce the danger as good as possible," said the Bavarian photojournalist, who specializes in documenting the most extreme phenomena of the natural world.
"When whole continental shelves are colliding, and getting liquefied, and get reborn in other places in these volcanoes, this is magnificent," Peter said.
"You can theoretically understand the geology very well, but if you stand there and you witness that, it's just overwhelming."
Peter was elected best National Geographic Photographer in 2012 and has twice won the highly coveted World Press Photo Award.
His enviable career success owes at least in part to his daring, adventurous, and seemingly insatiable curiosity.
It was this love of science that fuelled his desire to venture to the largest lava lake in the world, the Nyiragongo Volcano in the Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Just the energy which is released there. It's the hottest lava on the planet," he said.
"The quantities are enormous. Then you witness these strange phenomenons."
There, amid lava temperatures of 2,400 F Carsten and his team were rocked by low-frequency "infra-sound."
"That was very, very strange, because you couldn't hear it, but you felt it through the whole body. I thought I almost [went] a little crazy, but my friend experienced the same."
It's these kind of surprises and "close calls" that Peter finds so rewarding, and he strives to capture and translate them for his audience.
Though he always aims to mitigate the risks involved, he admits that sometimes things boil down to sheer luck.
"You can easily underestimate these forces of nature."
You can hear Carsten Peter speak about these and many other of his adventures live April 10 and 11 at the Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary. The Extreme Planet event is part of Arts Commons' National Geographic Live series.