Skin protection awareness is high when it comes to beach-ing. But outdoor- ing? In winter In the UK, it will be.
Peak Exposure, a captivating, new melanoma photo exhibition and engagement campaign by Klick Health UK for the UK skin cancer awareness nonprofit, Melanoma Fund, shows provocative photographic images of real melanomas. At first glance, they look like dramatic mountain landscapes, at a time when participation in outdoor activity continues to rise. At altitude, UV levels increase by approximately 10–12% for every 1,000 metres gained, while snow can reflect up to 80% of UV radiation, intensifying exposure to the face and eyes, according to the World Health Organization.
Peak Exposure also features headlines drawn from interviews with real melanoma survivors, Willie Munro, Guy Jarvis, and Caroline Gleich. All three have spent much of their lives outdoors in high-risk environments, yet never expected one of the greatest long-term dangers to be UV exposure. Their voices bring lived truth to the work and reinforce the need for better year-round sun protection and skin-check awareness.
“After decades of climbing mountains, the nearest thing that’s come to killing me is melanoma,” stated Guy Jarvis, who addressed the thousands of mountain training instructors, guides, and other outdoor professionals who attended the conference.
Michelle Baker, CEO, Melanoma Fund, commented, “This campaign is about a disconnect.The damage happens now. The consequences come later, so it’s easy to ignore, a bit like smoking.These images remove that distance. They make the connection impossible to dismiss.It’s uncomfortable, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it.”
The exhibition premiered at the Mountain Training England and Mountain Training Cymru national provider conference at the Plas y Brenin National Outdoor Centre in Wales, March 26-27. Klick Health’s UK team, who created the unique campaign and were on-site at the conference where the exhibition premiered, capturing real-time audience reaction to the exhibition and informing campaign development across the outdoor sector in partnership with the Mountain Training Association (MTA) and through further engagement with Mountaineering Scotland and the Outdoor Industries Association.
“We are proud of the work we are doing with Melanoma Fund,” stated Tim Jones, EVP, executive creative director, Klick Health. “Peak Exposure makes the invisible danger of UV impossible for winter sport, mountain, and outdoor communities to ignore.”
Each execution in the poster campaign is built as a two-stage reveal. From a distance, the image appears to be a dramatic winter mountain landscape. Up close, it reveals its truth – the mark of real melanoma, underlining the campaign message – skin cancer can leave its mark in winter, too. The work was built from real melanomas captured on set to keep the campaign grounded in truth and handled with care. Real people living with melanoma were cast for the project. Makeup was applied directly on the skin and around each lesion to shape highlights, shadow, and texture for macro capture, treating the surface like natural topography. The lesions were then photographed in extreme detail and mapped into CGI to form winter ridgelines, slopes, and snowfields. The result transforms something familiar and beautiful into a warning.
Skin cancer is now the most common cancer in the UK, with over 21,000 cases of melanoma diagnosed each year and significantly higher numbers of non-melanoma skin cancers. Despite this, sun exposure remains one of the most normalised and least challenged risks in outdoor activity. Research from the Melanoma Fund highlights that 72% of coaches, leaders and teachers have never received training on sun or heat protection: only 16% of organisations have a dedicated sun protection policy; and over two-thirds report sun or heat-related incidents, including sunburn and heat exhaustion
Peak Exposure is designed to disrupt a long-standing gap between awareness and behaviour.
