Breathing Holes

Nature, second prize stories

00-10-1988

With the aid of a chain-saw Alaskans carve a trail of breathing holes in the ice in temperatures of minus 26 degrees Celsius. Three grey whales had become trapped under the ice north of Alaska. Aided by the US Air Force and Soviet ice-breakers, local Inuits succeeded in leading two of them back to the open sea.

Commissioned by: Black Star for Time / Life

Photo Credit: Charles Mason

Charles Mason has been living in Fairbanks, Alaska for the past 30 years. He teaches photojournalism and fine art photography at the University of Alaska Fairbanks – a job he loves and appreciates.

In the meantime he actively and passionately pursued all kinds of photography.

Somewhere along the way he has won awards for the work, including the Oskar Barnack Award at World Press Photo, POY Awards, and others. He also had a number of solo shows in and out of Alaska. His prints have been collected by individuals and a number of museum collections.

Charles Mason has been published widely, in such publications as the New York Times, Outside Magazine, Time, LIFE, GEO and many others. He has also been in the Picture of the Year issues in TIME, LIFE, Stern, and the Photography Annuals of PDN and Communication Arts.

He photographs his kids, his friends, his travels, life and landscape that surrounds him, and assignments and commercial work that comes his way. He covers Alaska stories for the New York Times, and he is represented by the Well Street Art Co. (Fairbanks) and Getty Images.