Sebastian Copeland

He is a fellow of The Explorers Club. His documentary Into the Cold was a featured selection at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival and was released on DVD timed to Earth Day 2011.

Copeland is the son of the director of the Lille National Philharmonic Orchestra, Jean-Claude Casadesus. He graduated from UCLA in 1987. • Illustration — Sebastian Copeland in Antarctica in 2023

Copeland began his career in New York City directing music videos before moving on to commercial directing as well as professional photography with credits including fashion and advertising, album covers, and celebrities. Since 2000, Copeland has focused his work on climate change. His prints have appeared in exhibitions including the United Nations (Solo Show, 2007), the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Peabody Essex Museum as well as the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. His work is included in The Natural World Museum in San Francisco's permanent archive. In 2006 and 2007 prints from his first book, Antarctica: The Global Warning, were selected to tour with the International Photography Awards' "Best in Show" world tour. Copeland writes for Men's Journal and Huffington Post. He has made keynote addresses at the United Nations and think tank The Planetworkshops. From 2003 to 2018, Copeland served on the board of directors of Global Green USA. He also co-founded Artists for Amazonia in 2009 to raise awareness of deforestation in the Amazon Basin.

Copeland is a mountain and climbing enthusiast. In 2005, Sebastian co-organized a media initiative in the Arctic with Global Green USA in defense of the Inuit's cultural loss to climate change. After two trips to Antarctica, in 2006 and 2007, he decided to try to combine fine art photography, adventure and environmental concerns. In 2007, Copeland released his first book Antarctica: The Global Warning followed in 2009 with Antarctica: A Call To Action. In 2013, in Copeland completed his second documentary, Across The Ice: The Greenland Victory March. In 2015, Copeland published his third monogram, Arctica: The Vanishing North published by teNeues, representing 10 years of Arctic travel. Arctica is a comprehensive visual record of the North Pole, including a foreword by Sir Richard Branson and accompanying texts by Andrew J. Weaver, Dr. Ted Scambos, Mayor Eric Garcetti, Sheila Watt-Cloutier and Børge Ousland. Copeland was named Photographer of the Year by the Tokyo Int'l Photo Awards for this book. In 2018, Copeland was given a public exhibit by the French Senate. The show of eighty panels seen by an estimated four million visitors over four months along the gates of the Luxembourg gardens in Paris. As of 2025, Copeland resides in Los Angeles, California. He organizes and leads ongoing polar and desert expeditions aimed at documenting climate change impacts through photography.

• 2008 GQ Germany: Man Of The Year—Engagement • 2010 Gala Award, Germany – Environmental Stewardship • 2014 green good design copeland Award 2014 from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture & Design • 2018 Germany's BAMBI award, in the "Our Earth" category • 2019 Knighted in the National Order of Merit by French President Emmanuel Macron

• 2007: Salon Imperial, Paris, Antarctica: The Global Warning Nov. 27th-16 December 2007 • 2008: Jan Kesner Gallery Los Angeles, Antarctica: The Global Warning Nov. 2007 – Jan. 2008 • 2008: Flo Peters Gallery Hamburg Germany, Antarctica—The Global Warning 24 April – 24 May 2008 • 2008: Napapijri Gallery Milan, Italy Solo Show Antarctica 23 June 2008 – 15 September 2008 • 2013: Bernheimer Gallery, Munich Germany A Million Faces of Ice March—April 2013 • 2013: [Gagosian Gallery], Los Angeles, California B&W Ice exhibit to benefit the NRDC, October 2013 • 2017: Lumière Center for Photography, Moscow Pure Arctic Retrospective of more than 50 works 21 September 2017 – 7 January 2018 • 2018: Camera Work Gallery, Berlin "Sebastian Copeland" 19 October 2018 – 1 December 2018