Rolph Gobits’ “Life at 27 Degrees Below Zero.” Part 1: “Swimmers”

London-based portrait and landscape photographer Rolph Gobits has just produced a series of images inspired by his wife’s hometown of Vladivostok, Russia, and taken during a period of extreme cold. Called “Life at 27 Degrees Below Zero,” the project ranges from street photographs and portraits Rolph took around town to images of ice fishermen and women and hearty, colorful souls out for a bracing swim in the frigid ocean.

The photos are by turns stark and richly saturated, their mood sometimes almost philosophical and other times quite immediate and fond. But they all in some way reflect Rolph’s theory of what it means to be alive. “The analogy I always use is of a lighthouse (man) in a very hostile and choppy vast ocean (life),” he explains. “In some of these images, there is a single person or several people apart from each other but together in a landscape to accentuate this image of lighthouse and ocean. However close we are with a person or persons at the end of the day, we are all alone because in certain circumstances nobody can help us with our pain or private thoughts…”

But a theoretical exploration wasn’t Rolph’s only ambition in doing this project. “I have always been fascinated by how people can survive in extreme weather conditions and wondered if I could do likewise,” he says. “Being able to swim in ice is all about mind over matter, for example. If you brain persuades you that you can do something that seems impossible, then you can do it—anything is possible.”

Here’s “Swimmers,” part 1 of a three-part series of photos from Rolph Gobits’ “Life at 27 Degrees Below Zero.” Next week, I’ll post “Vladivostok Portraits,” and after that, “Ice Fishing.”