THE prestigious was inaugurated two years ago to honour outstanding photography that conveys important messages about global environmental issues. Last year鈥檚 theme was water; this year it is earth, and the work of the 12 shortlisted photographers is showcased in the book , published next month by teNeues (拢45), with a foreword by Kofi Annan, honorary president of Prix Pictet.
Three examples are shown here. 鈥荣 work is informed by the transformation of nature by colossal industrial processes, and exposes the detachment most of us have from them. His Quarries series of precisely framed photographs of mines, including this one in Portugal (far right), reveals the massive scale of these operations.
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The landscapes calls Fullmoons (lower left) are from the Huangshan region of Anhui province in China, an area that inspired 鈥渟han shui鈥� (the term translates as 鈥渕ountain water鈥�) landscape painting. They get their eerie beauty from being shot as very long exposures, lit only by moonlight.
Tokyo-based 鈥荣 Blast series (upper left) captures the moments following blasting in limestone quarries in Japan, using a high-speed remote-controlled camera. Hatakeyama examines the past, present and future of the city and its relationship with nature. The thread running through his work is building materials 鈥� from raw materials via processing to construction and ultimately demolition.
See the winners: Exploited Earth: Prix Pictet photography prize 2009
- For details of Earth, and for a full list of prize nominees and the winner, go to
