Icebergs are pretty scary. Aside from the whole Titanic history, there’s a sheer scale and enormity to them that feels deeply overwhelming. That’s what makes this article all the more compelling.
German photographer Tobias Friedrich has been diving under the ice in East Greenland for years, and his photos of icebergs from below are truly something to behold. You know the saying about the tip of the iceberg. About 90 percent of every berg sits under the waterline, and this is what that part looks like.
The walls are pale blue and dimpled like a golf ball, the water around them is black, and there’s usually one diver in the frame, looking very, very small.
Cutting a way in
In March 2019, Friedrich went to Tasiilaq, on Greenland’s east coast, with German freediver Anna von Boetticher, who holds 33 national records. The fjord had frozen over, and the icebergs in it were stuck in place. That’s what makes these pictures possible, since a loose iceberg can roll over without warning.
Getting under the ice took real work. Via Friedrich’s own write-up in Alert Diver, the team dragged their gear out by snowmobile and sledge, then spent hours sawing holes through ice more than a foot thick. DIVE Magazine notes the holes were cut as triangles, so the straight edges would stand out from below. When that hole is your only way back up, you want to be able to find it!
The water was about 28°F. Seawater freezes lower than fresh water, so yes, that’s colder than the ice in your freezer. Friedrich wore a drysuit and had a tank. Von Boetticher wore a wetsuit and held her breath. We can’t quite get our heads around that.
They poured hot salt water into their regulators to keep them from freezing, and anything wet iced over within minutes of leaving the water. On one dive von Boetticher lost sight of the exit hole for a moment and found it again by spotting Friedrich’s signal. And about two hours after the team packed up, the ice they’d been standing on broke off and drifted out to sea.
Why the ice is so blue
Up top, an iceberg looks white because the surface is full of tiny air bubbles that scatter light. Underwater the ice is denser. Via NOAA, dense ice soaks up the red and yellow light and sends back the blue.
So the blue in these photos is the real color of the ice. On some dives von Boetticher carried a video light to show off the texture.
The split shot below is the one that gets us. Above the water there’s a modest white hill, and underneath it is a mountain. Greenland’s waters are also home to a shark that can live for four centuries, which doesn’t make any of this less scary!
Really beautiful work. Friedrich sells a limited run of prints from this series on his site, BELOW SURFACE, and posts new dives on Instagram. Go look.
Photos © Tobias Friedrich, used with artist permission. We first shared this series back in 2020.
