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Photography

The 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest Captures Stunning Environments Around the U.K.

From hazy lochs and grand mountainous vistas to water-side pedestrian paths, the 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year contest highlights the vast splendor of Britain’s environments. Winners of this year’s competition encompass both the natural and human-made, showcasing a steam-engulfed train roaring across the Fellowman Crosses Ribblehead viaduct or a glimmering celestial sky above the limestone arch of Durdle Door.

The contest joins Network Rail for a traveling exhibition that will migrate across the U.K., starting with Paddington Station on October 31. Peruse the winning images on the competition’s site and by picking up a copy of this year’s book.

 

Animation

A Satirical New Animation by Greenpeace Swamps Boris Johnson in a Gushing Sea of Plastic

Greenpeace’s new campaign opens with a single bottle bouncing off Boris Johnson’s head mid-press conference before a waterfall of plastic overwhelms the prime minister and carries him out to the street. The satirical and pressing animation pours the equivalent of the 1.8 million kilograms of waste the U.K. sends to other countries each day into Downing Street, which topples Johnson and Michael Gove as it literally engulfs the British political landscape.

“Wasteminster: A Downing Street Disaster” is the organization’s latest effort to put pressure on the government to enact new policies around recycling and the environment. “Much of (the plastic waste) ends up illegally dumped or burnt, poisoning local people and polluting oceans and rivers,” says Greenpeace U.K. political campaigner Sam Chetan-Welsh. “The government could put a stop to this but so far Boris Johnson is only offering half measures. We need a complete ban on all plastic waste exports and legislation to make U.K. companies reduce the amount of plastic they produce in the first place.”

Conceptualized and produced by Studio Birthplace alongside Park Village, the short film lifts actual quotes from interviews and speeches made by Johnson and the U.K. government, many of which boast about the nation’s success in combatting pollution. While the 3D figures resemble Johnson and Gove, directors Jorik Dozy and Sil van der Woerd say they’re not identical in order to “introduce some distance to these real politicians. After all, they are only dummies. Our intention was not to ridicule politicians, but to place their dummy-personas in a direct conflict with the invisible consequences of their own actions.”

Read more about Greenpeace’s initiative and the film’s production process, which involved lengthy research and the help of CG producers Method & Madness, on Studio Birthplace’s site.

 

Photography

Nostalgic Photographs by Ian Howorth Frame the Nuances and Liminal Moments of British Life

Ian Howorth frames the seaside villages and debris-laden roadsides that populate the U.K. through evocative, nuanced photographs captured with 35 mm film. Born to a British father and Peruvian mother, Howorth moved often as a child before settling in the U.K. Today, his view on rural towns is idiosyncratic and wavers between an insider’s knowledge and someone just passing through. His largely cinematic shots of abandoned vans, ashtrays left outside, and residents on the street are ripe with nostalgia and feature a distinct sense of place, although the Brighton-based photographer is wary about sharing exact locations.

In recent years, Howorth has shifted to capturing “in-between moments – a rest stop, a chance encounter, en route to someplace else,” he shares in an Instagram post about his now sold-out collection In Passing. Some prints from this broad collection are still available from Open Doors Gallery, where you also can explore an extensive archive of his work. (via This Isn’t Happiness)