SONY WORLD PHOTO AWARD | 2022
Landscape Professional Winner
Both science and religions may all fall short to explain the incredible miracle of Life which, through millennial evolution, has transformed barren land into an alive Planet.
Mother Earth has been regarded by humans through the centuries as a fertility goddess; water is the most incredible terrestrial element with all living beings depending on it to thrive. Water is the common denominator of the living world.
There is an untamed world between sacred and magic, where the essence of life is safeguarded by silence, where the outer and the inner world coincide. This is what I am seeking to photograph.
Alan Watts: “...each one of us, not only human beings but every leaf, every weed, exists in the way it does, only because everything else around it does…If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything…”
Sony World Photo Organisation
Karma Sun
Sunrise over the Earth, where every action has an effect.
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Bare Land
An uninhabitable volcanic desert in the Icelandic Highlands. The climatic conditions here are so harsh for the majority of the year that life doesn’t thrive.
Seed of Life
Water has an incredible versatility in transitioning between multiple states and forms. All living beings are made or depend on fresh water to thrive. Water is the Seed of Life. Glacial ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. What are the consequences for the shrinkage of Glaciers?
The Fertility Goddess
A volcanic spring in the Icelandic Highlands in summer. Although the window for proliferation is short, life springs and perpetuates around the water source.
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Indra Gem
The magic underworld, where the natural world bursts to life with its incredible resilient simplicity. There is a sort of cosmic dimension to it. A kind of divine interconnectedness. Alan Watts: “....each one of us, not only human beings but every leaf, every weed, exists in the way it does, only because everything else around it does...”
The Guardians
Trees presiding over the Glacial Kingdom. They are the guardians of the Water cycle. Trees help control the water cycle by regulating precipitation, evaporation and flows.
The Melting Path
The downstream path of a glacial river. With global temperature fast raising these surface streams are more and more frequent.
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Glacial Sentinel
Glaciers mass impacts both the local climate and globally the Planet weather system. The polar ice caps influence the weather dynamics and the jet stream. Glaciers are indicators of climate fluctuations and truly sentinels of climate change.
Open Wound
Torn-up trees at the edge of the ravaged forest with branchless spruces. The storm Adrian (Vaia) devastated the South Alps in early November 2018, caused devastating damage to the forests: it churned for three days. Elsewhere, torrential rains caused large floods, and the storm left 75% of Venice underwater. Unusual storm, of unusual length and unusually damaging. A new usual?
Fluid Ashes
“I am water, I am earth, I resonate with the wind, one day my ashes will blend again with the ones from the volcanoes…”
Our Individual existences and their lengths are irrelevant and negligible if compared to the life of the Planet. We are in an era where collective Human actions are creating irreversible and devastating effects on a global scale for the Earth.
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