Environmental Photographer of the Year 2023: Images of flood, drought and plastic pollution
CNNCNN — A herd of buffaloes wander parched land amidst a drought, a farmer and his cows wade knee-deep through floodwater, and people walk across a bridge over a multicolored river of trash. When it does rain, it pours – as shown in 18-year-old Solayman Hossain’s photo of a farmer navigating floodwaters during monsoon season in the Kushtia district, in the west of the country. He adds that this year’s competition saw entries from other regions also severely threatened by climate change, such as India, West Bengal, Antarctica and Argentina. Jahid Apu Jahid Apu, a professional photographer from Bangladesh, took the drone shot of a bridge in the capital Dhaka surrounded by plastic waste that won the “MPB vision of the future” category. Sutaria believes that the winning images from this year’s prize represent a wider shift in environmental photography, away from simply portraying nature as an untouched paradise to images that carry a conservation message.