July, 1969: photographer Mark Edwards, lost on the edge of the Sahara desert, is rescued by a Tuareg nomad who takes him to his people. He rubs two sticks together to make a fire and produces a cassette player. Bob Dylan sings “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”: “sad forests”, “dead oceans”, “where the people are many and their hands are all empty.” As Dylan piles image upon image, Edwards has the idea to illustrate each line of the song. In the years that follow, he travels around the world on assignments that allow him to take the photographs to turn Dylan’s prophetic words into images of the real world.
The result is Hard Rain, a photographic essay that illustrates the interlinked challenges of climate change, poverty, population expansion, habitat destruction, species extinction, pollution and the wasteful use of resources. Hard Rain brings these global challenges alive in a moving and unforgettable way. 
More than 15 million people on every continent have viewed it in city centres, botanic gardens, universities, and at the United Nations headquarters. One of the most successful photographic exhibitions ever created, it has attracted huge public and critical acclaim, along with the support and endorsement of political and environmental leaders across the world.
HARD RAIN: Our headlong collision with nature
When it comes to these challenges, we are all in it together – we all have a role to play. The decisions we make, for example, about shopping, travelling and living all make a difference. So the lesson from Hard Rain is not only of the damage we are causing, but of the shared responsibility we all have to respond – and to do those things which, step by step, can make a real difference.
Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
This disturbing, powerfully moving work is a masterpiece that summons up the ghosts of our past and a vision of the future that is ours to change. Regret and optimism make strange bedfellows, but great artists have always known this.
Tim Smit, Chief Executive and co-founder, The Eden Project
Hard Rain is a piece of sustained beauty. I treasure it.
Arundhati Roy
I am a huge Bob Dylan fan so I already knew the songs lyrics well. Having such emotive photographs accompany these lyrics, however, was a whole different story. Whilst walking around the exhibition I found myself moving through a range of emotions and, upon leaving, I was filled with a strong, passionate longing to play my part in changing this world for the better. I've always been a charitable person but find that sometimes you can feel things without acting on them - this has to stop. If everyone just opened their eyes a little bit wider, so much could be changed.
Hannah Rose-Harkin, Nottingham Trent University
