Earth Stories,

Landscape and

Human Activities

Jurors: Fabian Goncalves & Rafa Cruz
AMA | Art Museum of the Americas

Earth Stories, Landscape and Human Activities: Human beings as integral part of the biosphere and the consequences of our actions.

Photo Credit: Investigation, © Anna Homburg, Berlin, Germany

Earth Stories
Juror Roundtable

Jurors Fabian Goncalves and Rafa Cruz return to discuss the Earth Stories: Landscape and Human Activities photo competition, share insights on the selection process, highlight the chosen works, and engage with the prize winners and exhibiting photographers featured in the online exhibition.

Jurors: Fabian Goncalves & Rafa Cruz
AMA | Art Museum of the Americas

Fabian Goncalves Borrega opened the Art Museum of the Americas’ OAS F Street Gallery in 2005, as a space dedicated to contemporary photography, where he has curated and organized numerous photography exhibitions. For over 20 years he has reviewed portfolios for prestigious institutions including the Houston Photo Fest, Buenos Aires Festival of Lights in Argentina, Porto Alegre Fest Foto in Brazil, Foto Lima, Peru and Foto Espana Transatlántica, Foto DC in Washington DC, Photolucida in Portland Oregon, the Biennale of the Santo Doming in the Dominican Republic, and most recently with artists and photographers from San Salvador in El Salvador Central America.

In addition to his own considerable photographic work Fabian has been an exhibit coordinator at the Art Museum of the Americas AMA since 1998 where he oversees the curation of exhibitions including the loans of art works, lighting and installation.

Rafa Cruz began his career as a commercial photographer in his beloved Puerto Rico. He developed his craft as a portrait artist, photographing more than 200 weddings, working with companies such as Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy, Esposa Moderna Magazine, Airbus, FotoFest and the Latin Chamber of Commerce of Washington, DC.

Since 2016, he has worked with the AMA | Art Museum of the Americas of the Organization of American States (OAS), Washington, DC, photographing hundreds of modern and contemporary artworks of the Americas for art criticism books, archival databases, exhibition catalogs, and other publications. He travels frequently, documenting cultures near and far from an anthropological, spontaneous, human perspective.

GRAND PRIZE

Plastic Bottle Recycling
Joy Saha
Narayanganj, Bangladesh

Jurors’ Statement

Women are in the front line, fighting poverty. The mass production of plastic bottles creates a paradox and a contradiction given to this member of this vulnerable community and opportunity to make some money in recycling. The rounded basket represents the whole world floating in a sea of plastic bottles.

Artist’s Statement

Joy Saha is a Visual Journalist who specializes in capturing compelling human and environmental stories through the lens. His work has been featured in over 100 world’s leading news outlets, including The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Wall Street Journal, TIME, National Geographic, GEO, Stern, Der Spiegel, Amnesty International, and The Daily Telegraph of London. With a profound interest in Documentary photography, Joy is passionate about exploring the diverse aspects of human life and depicting the pressing environmental challenges of our time. He uses photography as a powerful storytelling tool to shift perspectives and inspire action. His projects highlight daily life, vulnerable communities, and the impacts of climate change, emphasizing the urgency of global solidarity. He is on an endless journey of portraying human struggles and environmental impacts to evoke empathy and drive meaningful change.

FIRST PLACE

Exit Strategy
Roger Archibald
North Quincy, MA

Jurors’ Statement

Fighting fire with fire. Forest fires have become common in the era of climate change. Men and Women firefighters risk their lives every day in order to control and mitigate forest fires. Sometimes they have to destroy and burn areas in order to control existing fires.

Artist’s Statement

I like to think that my photography is simply an illustration of my life. In the fifty years or so that I’ve been serious about it, I’ve pretty much always been accompanied by a camera, now especially true in the era of mobile phone cameras. I first became intrigued by the possibility in pictures as a sailor in the Navy assigned to an aircraft carrier serving in southeast Asia. Photographs seemed the best medium to explain to people back home what I was experiencing overseas, and also as a means of creating visual notes that I could refer back to down the road. Once out of the service, I pursued the same interest back in college on the GI Bill. And later during years of struggling to build freelance success, I worked nights in a photo lab, while trying to land photo assignments during the day. Eventually I came to realize that it was the things that I enjoyed most doing that I enjoyed most photographing, and that pretty much has been the story of my photographic life ever since.

SECOND PLACE

Los Olvidados Guatemala
Harvey Castro
Oakland, CA

Jurors’ Statement

The big industries in many countries, industrialized or not, produce greenhouse gasses, contributing to global warming increasing the power of destruction of this natural phenomenon. The indigenous communities are the most integrated into the ecosystem that surrounds them. In the case of “The Olvidados” an indigenous community of Guatemala, they are the victims of global warming.

Artist’s Statement

On November 5, 2020, Hurricane Eta caused a landslide that destroyed the village of Queja, leaving 58 people dead and the survivors with nothing. Within days, the mayor of San Cristobal Verapaz declared the area a camposanto, a graveyard, and ended all rescue efforts due to the persisting danger. In 2018, I photographed the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico. During the first six months after the storms, 135,000 climate refugees relocated to the mainland United States. When I arrived in Guatemala a few days before the bicentennial anniversary of independence from Spanish rule, I saw parallels to what I had experienced in Puerto Rico, where marginalized communities were left without agency and forgotten. This tragedy is not unique to Queja, but it is a familiar story for many communities in Guatemala, particularly those in the highlands. Poor infrastructure, deforestation, and inadequate resources leave them highly vulnerable. The destruction of crops and homes leads many to migrate for survival, often at a significant risk.

THIRD PLACE

Urban Flight
Tom Reese
Seattle, WA

Juror’s Statement

The photographer created an interesting contradiction. Between the noise and gasses pollution produced by the Blue Angels flying next to a man made pole with platform for the Osprey nest. Creating a contradiction that we are polluting what we are trying to save.

Artist’s Statement

Tom Reese is a journalist, photographer, author, editor, artist and teacher. His work as a newspaper and magazine photojournalist has been nominated for Pulitzer Prizes in breaking news photography, feature photography and explanatory reporting during his career at The Seattle Times. His current projects focus on the complex relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world, including his book, Once and Future River: Reclaiming the Duwamish, with the University of Washington Press. The Seattle Art Museum Gallery has represented his work. Exhibitions include The Seattle Art Museum Gallery, The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, FotoDocument in London and Brighton, UK. He has been recognized with multiple honors from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, Best of Photojournalism, and the Associated Press.

HONORABLE MENTION

Untitled
Steve Dinberg
Chamblee, GA

Jurors’ Statement

Even beautiful shapes and colors and patterns produced by human activities have an effect on the ecosystem that surrounds them.

Artist’s Statement

The sense of adventure that comes with exploring new places and meeting new people is what keeps me interested in street photography. There are two reasons people travel. “The first is to see something new, the other is to experience something old”. I have long been a passionate photographer. Someone once said, "In photography, vision is the power of observation, it’s how you notice things that are worth capturing." I am always looking for that decisive moment, and constantly in search for that magical light, the texture of skin, interesting faces, and amazing eyes, but most of all, I try to capture that brief moment of interaction. I spend extended time getting to know the natural light, colors, shapes, textures and motion in a defined area, that being a street, alleyway or even the face of a person who has grabbed my attention.

HONORABLE MENTION

Unfurl
Christina McFaul
La Jolla, CA

Jurors’ Statement

As human beings, we feel strong but also, we forget how fragile we are. Sometimes to understand nature, you have to become part of it.

Artist’s Statement

Sanctuary in the Wild “We are stardust, we are golden, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Joni Mitchell. The earth is dreaming through us, and we must awaken to it. In the dark primordial waters, we are born of the same matter as our solar system, the stars, and the earth. The sound of water rushes over rocks downstream like a lullaby; a palm frond waves without a single gust of wind; bird song carries me on its wings. I find sanctuary in wild places that live and breathe here and now – within and without. And I’ve witnessed two boys discovering the magic and mystery of the wild, a reminder that we too are wild.