Ep. 43: Dancing with whales, with Karim Iliya

So your work has been featured by National Geographic, BBC Earth, Netflix, you just mentioned, and in over 55 countries and thousands, I'm sure, maybe even more than thousands of hours in the field, what's the most memorable photography experience you've ever had?

It is hard to distill that down to just one photography experience, but photographing volcanoes and being around volcanoes is such an impressive thing.

The first time that I photographed a volcano was in Guatemala.

I was in this town, and you could see this volcano in the distance, and I went up on a hike, an overnight hike, and every 20 minutes or so, it would explode, and lava would shoot into the sky and, you know, tumble down the mountainside.

And that set me off on a, a, you know, a journey in life that I would not have anticipated, going and seeing volcanoes in places, and, uh, so I've spent time, you know, in Hawaii watching lava pouring off of these cliffs-

Mm

... down into the ocean, and you feel the heat of it.

And when you watch a volcano, it brings up, it's such visceral-

Mm

... feelings and emotions.

Like, you feel like you're going into, you know, Mordor from Lord of the Rings.

Yeah.

You're really, it's this landscape where almost nothing, it feels like there's this destruction and violence, but at the same time, creation.

You know, land is being made in real time.

Normally, with, you know, geological things, you have to wait thousands and thousands of years for any changes, but with volcanoes, the land is growing right in that moment.

Mm.

And it's, you start to think what a crazy idea it is that if you heat up rock enough, it becomes liquid, and it glows in the dark.

Yeah.

It's like a flame, and you feel like a moth or a bug that is just drawn to this flame.

And I've gone in to look at volcanoes and thought to myself, "I'm gonna be there for 10 minutes to look at this specific spot, or a few hours," and spent, you know, 10, 12 hours.

Wow.

And then the, you know, night comes, and then the morning comes.

So I always bring plenty of gear and equipment and gas masks and food and everything.

Mm.

But I, you know, I've also, there was a moment when I was, uh, went to see a volcano, and me and my friend thought we'll just spend a few hours there, and then night came, and then we started to see the northern lights swirling-