Turning the tide with documentary filmmaker Alice Aedy

The power of images

"My work is driven by the idea that visual storytelling and images have the power to change the world," Alice explains. Growing up, her heroes were war photographers Sir Don McCullin and Lynsey Addario, but she always wanted to explore documentary filmmaking.

The images sat on Alice's hard drive for a year because she lacked the confidence to share them. But in 2016, The Guardian newspaper in the UK used one of her Idomeni portraits on its front page to promote a fundraiser for child refugees. "It gave me the confidence to call myself a photographer," Alice explains. "That was really the start of my journey as a professional photojournalist and documentary filmmaker." She's since been published by The Times, the BBC and VICE, among others, covering stories about migration and, increasingly, the environment.

"Climate change was never an issue I'd been passionate about – I thought the environment was somehow separate from human experience," she says. But through her work with refugees, she learned that scientists are predicting the biggest mass migration in history due to climate change. "If I cared about social justice, I would have to care about climate change, so I went on a huge journey to inform myself."

That journey took her to "climate change frontlines" ­– places such as Kiribati, a remote nation in the Pacific Ocean at risk from rising sea levels, and rural villages near the city of Burao in Somaliland, which have suffered droughts and famine. "I realised climate change is not a problem relegated to wildlife or melting glaciers, which somehow feels very abstract," she says. "This is about humans. This is about life or death."

Move to motion on the Canon EOS C300 Mark II

During this time, Alice shifted from shooting stills and video on her Canon EOS 5D Mark III to filming on a Canon EOS C300 Mark II (now succeeded by the Canon EOS C300 Mark III). "That was an incredibly smooth and easy transition because I had learned so much on the DSLR," she says. "Having a camera that specifically catered just to video gave me an incredible focus. Film has allowed me to go deeper into stories and characters. Life is messy and chaotic and film allows us to capture that in all its rawness and chaos in a way that stills sometimes can't."

Thanks to its hardy build quality and weather sealing, her trusty Canon EOS C300 Mark II – affectionately nicknamed Cecil – has been unfailingly fast, responsive and reliable, even when subjected to the most extreme conditions. "I have trekked through the jungle of Borneo in pouring rain," says Alice. "I have gone into deserts in Somaliland and Iraq, where sand can be a huge problem. There's nothing Cecil can't handle."

"The ND filters and the inbuilt sound capabilities on the Canon EOS C300 Mark II changed my life. Shooting 4K allows you to create an image which is incredibly detailed, extremely sharp, and that gives you a level of flexibility in post if you want to crop in or reframe your image. The autofocus is crucial, particularly when I'm working on my own."

Alice, who shoots in Canon Log for its expansive dynamic range, also finds the camera's low-light capabilities to be a distinct advantage, as she often shoots at sunrise and dusk. "That's an aesthetic choice, but it's also a practical one," she explains. "I have to be ready for every eventuality in documentary. You never know how the story is going to unfold. I love how Canon cameras capture the beautiful light at blue hour, before the sun rises or just after the sun sets."

Alice hopes that the storytelling industry will diversify. "If you're a young woman, and an aspiring photographer or filmmaker, the industry needs you," she urges. "This industry grossly under-represents women, particularly cinematographers."

She remains driven by the belief that her stories can make a difference. "One of my favourite environmentalists, Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres, talks about the need for both outrage and optimism," says Alice. "I think that encapsulates what drives my work. It really often is a mixture of outrage, frustration, and a desire to change and have an impact on the world, which has so many problems – but also an optimism that a new world is possible.

"There is power in storytelling. We only need to look back through history to see the impact that stories have had on shaping our lives – how we live them, why we live them and what it means to be human. Stories give shape to experience and existence, they are how we remember people. It is through stories that we dare to imagine a better world."