A picture is worth a thousand words. Now more than ever, photography has the power to celebrate the natural world and create conversations about our environment.
Developed in partnership with the Forestry England, Earth Photo is an international competition and exhibition which rewards photographs and videos that tell stories about our planet, its inhabitants, its beauty, and its fragility. Earth Photo showcases the very best in geographical and environmental visual media and aims to enable a better understanding of the world around us through the complementary disciplines of the environment, geography and photography.
2022 competition
Overall winner
The winner of the 2022 Earth Photo competition is Mohammad Rakibul Hasan for his pair of images The Last Savings at Bengal Delta and The Climate Crisis. Based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the photographer and artist documents the devastating effects of climate change, rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions on his home country and on people’s lives.
Visit Mohammad's website
The Last Savings at Bengal Delta portrays Fatema Khatun and her husband, Ruhul Amin Seikh who are, in the photographer’s words, “surviving against all odds on the coast of the Bay of Bengal”. While Ruhul Amin goes fishing, his wife Fatema waits for him by the river, where the water is saltier than ever. When he returns hours later, it is with a small number of fish, which the couple can hardly sell for 80 taka (1USD).
The Climate Crisis focuses on a family who lost their home and crops to river erosion, leaving nothing but memories behind. “Their land is gone in the river, and their survival depends on their work for a living” explains Mohammad. The already vulnerable family of 21 has also recently been hit hard by the pandemic.
Mohammad says, “Global warming has a more severe impact on certain countries than others because of the way it affects the world climate. Bangladesh, the largest delta of the world, is an obvious victim of global warming”.
Mohammad Rakibul Hasan, The Last Savings at Bengal Delta, 2021, Satkhira, Bangladesh
The 2022 category winners are:
People category - Mohammad Rakibul Hasan
The Climate Crisis, 2021, Satkhira, Bangladesh
Place category – Daniel Franc
Surfing the Spring, 2021, South Moravia, Czech Republic
Nature category – Pal Hermansen
Insect Diversity, 2014, Ski, Norway
Video category - Rosa Rodriguez
White Line, still, 2019, Arctic Circle
Changing Forests category – David Rippin
Destruction, 2022, Lake District
A Climate of Change category - Sandra Weller
Mamu got her first business selling cool drinks and ice in the solar powered village, 2021, The Gambia
Shortlisted entries
To view all the shortlisted entries, visit the Earth Photo website.
Previous competitions
To view the winning and shortlisted entries from 2021, 2020 and 2019 competitions, visit the Earth Photo website.
Exhibitions
They will be showcased in the Earth Photo exhibition at the Society until 26 August.
They will also be shown on a national tour to the following Forestry England sites:
Created in 2018, Earth Photo is highly-respected in the field of nature photography, with shortlisted and winning images being published each year by news outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, El Espectador, and magazines like Geographical, Vice, Digital Photographer, and National Geographic.
Earth Photo competition is run in partnership with: