Ian Gabaldoni

Ian Gabaldoni. Born 1966.
Landscape photographer based in Somerset.



In 2019 I started working on a personal project photographing the Somerset Levels.

Once completely submerged by water, the landscape has been reclaimed and transformed over centuries into a vibrant mosaic of internationally renowned wetland reserves and agricultural land.

I am drawn to these seemingly uneventful places: the fields, drainage ditches, rivers, pastures and marshes that go unnoticed. In daylight, they appear gentle and unassuming, but at night they are filled with tension and anxiety.

The Levels are under threat from severe water pollution and high levels of phosphates are causing biological harm to the waterways ecosystem. In May 2022, Natural England announced they were changing the status of all Somerset Levels Sites of Special Scientific Interest to ‘Unfavourable - Declining’, the worst status before ‘Destroyed’.

All of Somerset’s main rivers are now polluted beyond legal limits and the Environment Agency plan to clean up our waterways has been moved back to 2063. I’ll be 96.

I hope my work will inspire the viewer to notice the beauty and fragility of both the Levels and their own environments.

I worked as an art director and creative director for 25 years in London advertising agencies. Here I was fortunate to work with some of the world's best photographers. At Saatchi & Saatchi and JWT I won prestigious creative awards internationally at D&Ad and Cannes.

During this time my personal work as a photographer was also awarded by the Association of Photographers.