Environmental words and pictures

Daniel Nelson

Watering melon

Image by Uttam Kamati

Is it more prizeworthy than the image outside the exhibition venue of Indonesian sand excavation: grassy ground atop long vertical scars below which trucks are waiting to cart away the sand – nature, man, economy?

That’s one of the pleasures of award exhibitions: seeing if you agree with the judges and wondering about the basis for their selection.

Should decisions be based on the sheer impact of the image or for its effectiveness in illustrating a point, because even some of the strongest images mean nothing without a caption – like the picture of a monkey on a tyre (“What does the future hold for the poor monkey?”). 

Even Kamati’s photo needs a little help. It’s cleverly composed with a strip of river running across the top from which a flexible irrigation pipe snakes down the left-hand side of the frame and then across the bottom. The lighting accentuates the key issue, falling both on river and pipe, with the latter looking as though it’s illuminated by electricity.

The caption provides the crucial information: the Teesta is drying up.

The captions vary as much as the photos, from the obvious to the informative (“South Sudan has the highest cattle per capita rate in the world”) to the angry: a photo from Bangladesh explains that “in a spectacular display of government apathy, fisherfolk from the villages most affected by the [oil] spill had too clear up the toxic mess, without any help or protective clothing.”

(Bangladeshis make a strong showing in the exhibition, as they have done in a number of recent shows: the country’s climatic extremes, high population density, startling disparities of wealth and lifestyle and widespread social conscience have inspired an exceptionally talented generation of photographers.)

Similarly, while a fisherman in churning whitewater cuts a romantic figure, it’s the words that provide the context: “Uncontrolled and unsustainable netting with small aperture gill nets is killing such rivers as this one on the Congo/Zambia border.

“Now, netting using mosquito nets donated by international donor aid agencies is widespread and this exacerbates an already serious problem – such nets removing not just small fish but also all fingerlings and even fish eggs, rendering whole sections of a once-rich river ‘dead’. A devastating but apparently unintended lesson in how not to give aid.”

That’s informative, and doesn’t fall into the trap of surmise – perhaps to emphasise to the judges that a particular photo is “environmental”: a doleful Iranian bookseller “has perhaps retreated to the tranquillity of his interior to escape from the bustle of the country’s daily life”. Or perhaps he has just finished a cigarette and is gloomily contemplating his failure to give up smoking.

Some of the pictures would benefit from being displayed in a larger format, and there are few standout, gee-whiz images and plenty of well-worn tropes, including the solitary heroic figure (a Bangladeshi crab catcher) and Warhol-style multiplicity (the letting down of thousands of inflatable globes, and a street full of praying Muslims). Contrast is a common device: boys joyfully playing cricket in front a dump – Bangladesh again; a shack on stilts that is a Nigerian beauty salon; a stick house in front of a modern Melbourne block; swimmers and sunbathers near a damaged oil platform.

But there’s much of interest: the pictures documenting protests are not particularly strong but it’s good to see them in the show, and even the well-worn tropes sometimes hit the mark. The awards are worthwhile and the exhibition worth a visit.

* Environmental Photographer of the Year is at the Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, SW7 until 10 July, free, www.rgs.org  (and on 18 July-7 September at the Grizedale Visitor Centre, Cumbria, LA22 0QJ. www.forestry.gov.uk/grizedale 

The winners:

The Atkins CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year: Uttam Kamati for ‘Watering Melon’. Kamati’s winning image depicts a husband and wife watering watermelon saplings on the Teesta river bed, in West Bengal, India.

The Atkins CIWEM Young Environmental Photographer of the Year 2015, £1,000:  Bhar Dipayan’s ‘Families are living under the Bridge’.  

Forestry Commission England Exhibition Award: Esme Allen for her series ‘Eden Restored - The Mesopotamian Marshes of Iraq’.  

The Atkins Cityscape Prize, £1,000: Michael Theodoric for ‘Enjoy’, which shows a man enjoying the view of Jakarta from his hotel room. 

The Atkins CIWEM Environmental Film of the Year, £1,000: Verity White for ‘Ren Kyst - Got a spare afternoon?’