Grand Prize - Winner: Ivelina Berova

Mother Earth

In her project, “Mother Earth”, Berova reflects on our connections to nature and the inner self. Berova’s work explores issues such as deforestation, pollution, climate change, and the consequences of human activity in nature. She writes, “Creating conceptual and surreal works with respect for nature is my alternative way of experiencing nature and our relationship with it.”

People's Choice - 1st:

Frida Yolotzin

Atlantic flying fish

This beautiful fishes are generally found in surface waters near the coast, they are capable of leaping out of the water and gliding for long distances above the surface. They feed on plankton, so we end up meeting each other regularly.

People's Choice - 2nd Prize: Chloé Milos Azzopardi

Écosystèmes

“Écosystèmes” is the last part of the ongoing series “Les formes qu’ils habitent en temps de crise”. It’s a futuristic fable in which identities become porous and metamorphoses possible, a research about how we can imagine new interspecies relationships in a post-capitalocene era.

People & Nature - 1st Prize:

Javier Arcenillas

MARIPOSARIO

Arcenillas’s photography explores the helplessness and fragility of the individual in today’s society. He uses the imaginary as a basis for visual reflection.

People & Nature - 2nd Prize:

Zuzana Pustaiova

Trip to the Mountains 5

Pustaiova’s project “Trip to the Mountains” is a simple story about a trip her grandparents took to the mountains. They have never had neither money nor the energy for traveling, so Pustaiova brought this “trip” directly to their house. In this series, Pustaiova’s grandparents went camping, hiking, and relaxing without leaving their comfort zone.

Urban Wildlife - 1st Prize:

Scifier

Alien

Colorado potato beetle larvae on a leaf (Leptinotarsa decemlineata). Irina Petrova Adamatzky specializes in wildlife micro-photography and science fiction inspired installations organically integrating living and artificial entities.

Urban Wildlife - 2nd Prize:

Daniela Balestrin

Your gaze is green .024

Visual artist and photographer, Daniela Balestrin’s work involves two spaces: the intimate space, where imagination and feelings circulate, and the external space of the concrete world. She uses analog photography as a tool, seeing in it a device that materially communes with the life she observes and files, and also as a living organism, which often acts in co-authorship with the artist through its mechanical and chemical processes.

Underwater - 1st Prize:

W. Goodwin

Eye Sea U. Rewild Your Eyes on an Endangered Reef Project

Caribbean Reef Octopus (Octopus briareus). Octopi are often elusive to photograph during the day. This one surprised the artist by remaining in sight at the back of its lair while the camera did its job.

Underwater - 2nd Prize:

Taisir Mahdi

24

Portugal is distinguished by its location on the Atlantic Ocean, where all marine animals, such as fish, sharks and other diverse fish, vary.

Wildlife - 1st Prize:

Amish Chhagan

Peace

Growing up in Zambia, Chhagan had numerous opportunities to explore the flora and fauna of this region of Africa. He writes, “The serenity of these vast lands and the excitement of spotting wildlife often transpired within me; more so when I found photography (or when photography found me). There is a certain kind of empowerment I feel being able to capture wildlife in its element with the detail and frozen moment that a lens can apprehend.”

Wildlife - 2nd Prize:

P. Yo

Shadow Hunter

A silhouette shot of an adult female Empusa fasciata... “My goal as a photographer is to make people more aware of the beauty that is all around us but often goes unnoticed”.

Climate - 1st Prize:

Sutanta Aditya

The Haze Disaster

Manggala Agni and military personnel were seen extinguishing the fire hotspot from peatland fires which are plantation areas in Ogan Komering Ilir, Palembang, Sumatra island, Indonesia. Photo taken on August 23, 2019. El-Nino storms due to global warming have triggered the occurrence of catastrophic fires in peat land and forest areas on the Sumatra Island, Indonesia from 2014-2019.

Climate - 2nd Prize:

Tash Sirroco

​​Lac Annecy January 2021

In January 2021, the Sirocco (a hot wind, often dusty or rainy, blowing from North Africa across the Mediterranean to southern Europe) traveled from the Sahara to France and spread a cloud of strange yellow sand in the city of Annecy. At the same time, the water level in the lake was overflowing. This picture represents exactly how we were feeling at this period: overwhelmed and lost in the fog with a disturbing horizon.

Conceptual - 1st Prize:

Maria La Sangre

The power of the word

La Sangre playfully places a Hibiscus petal in her mouth, looking like a tongue. She writes that the image is “Self-portrait and magic ritual to empower my voice.”

Conceptual - 2nd Prize:

Iana Zholud

Human Impact On The Environmen

There are no people in Iana Zholud’s collages. This is done intentionally to show nature, animals and aftermath
of the disaster caused by irresponsible human behavior.

1st: Dmytro Kupriyan - Ukraine

— Home #2
From series “Home”

In his series, Home, Kupriyan explores the human environment and our innate need for the opposite. Kupriyan illuminates landscapes and other natural views with projections of buildings or architectural elements on top of them. The resulting images highlight our man-made creations invading the natural world.

2nd: Elena Aya Bundurakis - Greece

— Touching Glutinous II,
From series "Eating Magma"

Bundurakis examines the very idea of being a living organism in her series “Eating Magma”. Through her work, Bundurakis aims to show that at our core, “we all have our vital senses to help us experience this world in a sensuous, cooperative way, along with other organisms.” Her work highlights the importance of observation, a skill that is becoming easily lost in our increasingly over-stimulating world.

3rd: Lorenzo Maccotta - Italy

— LMA-05

Air collection and treatment pipes are intersected by a thriving green tree in Maccotta’s “LMA-05”. Here, at the Bresso Niguarda depuration plant in Milan, Maccotta captures the convergence of nature and urban structure.