2009 Photo Contest
Here are the 10 photos that were finalists in the 2009 photo contest. Paige Olmsted’s photo from Sarawak, Borneo was the winner.
Photographer: Paul Youn
Location: Sipi Falls, Uganda
About: The photo shows local villagers crossing a river on a natural bridge right above a waterfall. I like that these villagers work in harmony with their environment.
Photographer: Alex Tablin-Wolf
Location: Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunan Province, China
About: The Yangtze river flows through the Gorge and may not be around for much longer.
Photographer: Sara Schonhardt
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
About: The image was taken from an apartment tower in central Jakarta in early September. It was dawn and the sun was rising during the Islamic month of Ramadan, when mosque bells call people to breakfast before the daily fast begins in this Muslim majority nation. Smog creates an almost constant haze over the extensive maze of kampongs (neighborhoods) here in the Indonesian capital.
Photographer: Rob Quatrone
Location: Brooklyn, New York
About: I took this photograph lying on the Brooklyn promenade, the sun had just set and the sky above the Upper Hudson Bay looked like a view of Earth from space. The inverted sliver of New Jersey’s horizon and the subtle profile of Lady Liberty reminded me where I actually was.
Photographer: Luis Poza
Location: Goreme, Turkey
About: As you can see, the terrain there is not optimal for farming – there are a lot of steep canyons and the soil is rather arid. Nevertheless, there are many pigeons in the region and pigeon droppings make for wonderful fertilizer. As a result, people put pots on tree branches (as pictured) or otherwise set up convenient places for pigeons to congregate (and poop), so they can later collect the fertilizer and use it to help them grow squash, potatoes, and other goods in the canyon valleys. Imagine how many green gardens could be sustained in New York with similar ingenuity!
Photographer: Paige Olmsted
Location: Skrang, Sarawak, Borneo
About:This photo was taken from a longboat headed upstream on the Skrang river in Malaysian Borneo in 2006. The primary rainforest in this region is among the most biodiverse and ecologically valuable in the world but is increasingly converted (slashed and burned) for agricultural purposes. Rubber tree plantations and black pepper production — both non-native to the area — are a primary source of income to local people. Despite increasing momentum to protect these lands, the inherent conflict at the conservation-development interface leaves their fate uncertain. One hopes that the sense of optimism captured in this photo is reflective of the future of these forests and the cultures of those who live in them.
Photographer: Wency Murphy
Location: Vancouver, Canada
About: This photo was taken in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, a 1.5 square-mile sanctuary of protected forest, trails and beaches on the edge of the city center. In 2006, a massive windstorm destroyed more than 10 per cent of the park, prompting a huge outpouring of public donations and government funds to restore the damage. In spite of the devastation, there proved a collective determination to finance and seek innovative ways to restore and preserve a beloved natural site. Today, city residents, tourists and critters alike share the results.
Photographer: Judith Kaine
Location: Masai Mara, Kenya
About: In the arid plains of the southern Kenyan Maasai-land stands the giant and rare Rothschild giraffe. This endangered subspecies is threatened by an already limited population count and hybridizations, in a part of the world undergoing significant population and infrastructural growth. I took this photograph, titled Moving Forward, while working on an economic development project in East Africa and have chosen to submit it for this contest because of the multiple confrontations within the shot; the juxtaposition between the dried grassland and empty sky, the grandeur of the grown giraffe and against the comparatively small baby that already stands at 6 feet in height, and the opposing directions of child and parent are all suggestive of the dichotomies within the dual goals of conservation and development.
Photographer: Amy Fuller
Location: Yosemite National Park, California
About: California uses large amounts of freshwater withdrawals for household, agricultural, and industrial purposes. Considering that the state is in its fourth year of drought and that climate change predicts reduced precipitation and smaller snowpacks, it can be assumed that California will face serious water shortages in the coming years. My photo, taken at Yosemite National Park, shows the natural beauty of our country’s parks that will be negatively affected if water resources are not properly controlled.
Photographer: Susanne Brooks
Location: Tulear, Madagascar
About: This was taken on the road from Tana (Antananarivo, the capital) to the Southwestern coast of the island (Tulear)…terraces of flooded rice paddies like these cover the landscape for a huge portion of the country.
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