For more than a decade, Camille Seaman has documented the rapidly changing landscapes of Earth’s polar regions through the lens of portraiture rather than landscape. As an expedition photographer on board small ships in the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland, she has chronicled the accelerating effects of global warming on the jagged faces of nearly 50,000 unique icebergs.

Seaman’s perspective on the landscape is entwined with her Shinnecock tribal identity, which taught her from an early age to recognize all living things—trees, spiders, fish and even ice—as individual members of one, enormous family. Viewing human beings as fundamentally interconnected to nature, Seaman approaches photographing icebergs “as if I am making portraits of my ancestors,” each one with a distinct history, personality and set of social relationships. Her dynamic images embed her subjects in an enduring, nourishing, but increasingly strained relationship with their environment—of which humans are an integral part.

She is a National Geographic contributing photographer, TED Senior Fellow, Stanford University’s John S. Knight Journalism Fellow and CIR (Center for Investigative Reporting) filmmaker in residence.