Martin Edström is a Swedish documentary photographer, director and National Geographic Explorer specialising in immersive storytelling, from 360° film and virtual reality to photogrammetry and interactive 3D. He is a Fellow of The Explorers Club.
In 2015 he created National Geographic's first 360° story, inside Vietnam's Son Doong, the world's largest cave passage, which won first prize at the International Photography Awards. In the last decade, he has spent time making interactive stories to illuminate scientific findings all over the planet. He helped find previously undiscovered caves in Kyrgyzstan for National Geographic using drone photogrammetry, and directed virtual reality series on the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Expeditions to Mt. Everest and along the river Ganges.
His fieldwork has taken him into cave systems, onto high-altitude mountains, glaciers and Arctic tundra capturing environments in 360° and 3D with camera rigs, drones and photogrammetry.
He is co-founder of IVAR Studios in Stockholm, a studio which produces immersive work for National Geographic, Disney, Netflix and others. IVAR Studios also builds tools that turn field data into explorable 3D environments, including AI guides grounded in published science.
Current projects include a fulldome film on glaciers and climate change in the Nordics, an Arctic tundra experience with fellow NatGeo Explorers Jeff Kerby and Isla Myers-Smith and lots of experimental projects on how AI can help tell stories about science. He also mentors emerging explorers in immersive and 3D field capture.
