With strikingly similar images and aesthetic impulses, we asked what Robert Kautuk, from Kangiqtugaapik (Clyde River), NU, and Eldred Allen, from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, NL, thought of each other’s photographs in this five-part series. 

Robert Kautuk Nanuq (2018) Digital photograph 33.9 × 19.1 cm COURTESY THE ARTIST

This bear looks like it is in a praying pose and makes me think of the many carvings of dancing bears that are so popular. It leaves you wondering what the bear is feeding on—some large decayed animal which, by the look of the bird droppings on the rock, has been an important source of food for many animals and birds. The polar bear stands out in the dark landscape making it an instant focal point and giving the image great compositional strength.

— Eldred Allen

Eldred Allen Caribou Lost in Shadow (2018) Inkjet print 91.5 × 67.5 cm COURTESY THE ARTIST

When I first got my drone, I was excited about the new angles that I could shoot, and getting shots of animals was a bit easier. It’s still difficult to capture a caribou in a photograph. I remember when I photographed a bear, it was interested in the drone, and chased it a couple times, so I think it would have been hard to get close to this caribou. Caribou are pretty hard to come by as they are very far from my community; we have to go to the other side of Qikiqtaaluk to catch them. If we want to order caribou meat it is also very expensive. 

— Robert Kautuk

This Feature was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly.

Read the rest of the series:

How a River Forms from a Drone’s Point of View

What Marine Mammals Look Like From Above

How Sea Ice Dots Aerials Landscapes

Watching the Spring Breakup from Overhead