Environmental Photographer of the Year Beautifully Showcases Climate Change

Pictures do speak louder than words. That’s why the Environmental Photographer of the Year award was created to allow photographers the opportunity to capture climate change repercussion and bring to light the many environmental and social issues that demand attention.

With over 10,000 submissions this year, there is clearly an interest in and engagement with this subject.

Credit: Tuyet Trinh Do
Credit: Tuyet Trinh Do

In the photo above, Vietnamese photographer Tuyet Trinh Do captures women making fishing nets in the Mekon Delta, Vietnam. They are preparing for the annual flooding of the river, and are making nets to catch the overflow of fish and shrimp.

Credit: Luke Duggleby
Credit: Luke Duggleby

This photo, captured by Luke Duggleby, examines all of the major issues: poverty, water conservation, sustainable development, and population growth.

In Cambodia, Buddhist monks are blessing trees which are about to be destroyed to make way for a banana plantation. The orange cloth makes them sacred, and are wrapped around the trees to hopefully deter loggers from cutting them down.

Credit: Kevin McElvaney
Credit: Kevin McElvaney, Adam Latif

Posing on a dump stump in Agblogloshie, Acca, Ghana, this young man is focus of the world’s biggest e-waste dump. Young men and children are scavengers, dismantling computers and going through piles of garbage in search of bits and pieces of e-waste to sell at a nearby market. For poor families from the north, it’s common to send young boys to this location to mine the dumps.

Credit: Alnis Stakle
Credit: Alnis Stakle

In the suburb of Shanghai, this is no Shangri-La. This photograph captures a suburban area crumbling to make way for high-rise developments. Another community destroyed, all in the name of ‘progress’.

Credit: Prasanta Biswas
Credit: Prasanta Biswas

This painfully beautiful shot was captured by Indian photographer, Prasanta Biswas. This is what drought looks like in West Bengal, India. It’s a result of climate change that extreme weather conditions – such as drought, flood, and cyclones – have crippled the Earth in this area.

Credit: Steve Morgan
Credit: Steve Morgan

Steve Morgan displays optimism with this shot from Fuentes de Andalucia, Selville, Spain. The photo displays a Gemasolar solar power tower plant which will supply solar power commercially on a huge scale. It will supply power to 25,000 homes and reduce carbon emissions by more than 30,000 tons a year.

Credit: Michael Schmidt
Credit: Michael Schmidt

And in this photo, Michael Schmidt does tribute to ‘real food’. Unfortunately the winner of the Prix Pictet passed away before he could be honored for this remarkable photograph.

This incredible competition allows photographers from all around the world to engage in social activism by capturing environmental change as art that deserves attention. Such beauty and travesty can not help but spur conversation, and hopefully, action.

Winners receive a monetary prize and also have their work showcased in forestry venues around the country.

Sources:

Tree Hugger

Environmental Photographer of the Year

Awards, CIWEM

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