Perspectives is ready to announce winners and finalists of this year’s photo contest. Our team received over 70 photos from SAIS community across the world. This year, the theme of the competition was Changing Perspectives: submissions illustrate how the pandemic changed perspectives - on life, on surroundings, or on the people around.
Winner
Lonely Hikes - Nature as a refuge for a pandemic
By Simone Weichenrieder
Description: With increasing stress one recognizes the value of lonely paths, small hikes or abandoned national parks in the time of social distancing. These two hikers seek abandonment on one of Iceland's long-distance hiking trails, the Laugavegur Trail. Only with their tents it leads them through the abandoned highlands, Islands past volcanic landscapes and hot springs. Iceland was one of the first Nordic countries to welcome foreign hikers back with joy as early as June 2020 and, despite Corona, wanted to revive its outdoor tourism with great effort and safety measures.
Second Place
Mask Wearers in Saint Kitts
By Chris Joondeph
Description: Every year the island of Saint Kitts celebrates carnival locally called Sugar Mas. This past year it was from November 22, 2019, to January 4, 2020. The festival goers are celebrating Kittian culture and folklore by dressing up as clowns and donning masks. If masks were so uncontroversial a few months ago, why are they an issue now?
Third Place
Peace
By Tricia Cuna Weaver
Description: Part of me looking forward, part of me looking back. 2020 has been a year of intense introspection. In all of this introspection, I have turned to my faith. I have always been faithful but have been wary of religion as an institutional, human construct that distorts faith. The events of this year have forced me to revisit my stance on these concepts. I still think religion can constrain personal expression of faith. But when I’m powerless to bring back the past, my religion gives me a way to offer it up to God. To concede that some things are beyond my control, to believe that things work out the way they should, and to find the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I do not accept all aspects of my religion, nor do I believe it is the only way to express my faith. But it is the way I know best and I am learning to welcome its importance in my life.
Forth Place
The Separation of Adam
By Austin Cardona
Description: I decided to submit this photo for the contest because I think it showcases how the pandemic has changed the human experience. I took this photo earlier this year for a photography class at Johns Hopkins University and was part of an assignment where we had to create a photo related to the pandemic using only household objects. For my interpretation of the assignment, I decided to do a recreation of part of Michelangelo’s iconic The Creation of Adam. I used gloves, my camera’s self-timer, and added cracks in my apartment wall via Photoshop to mimic the textures of the original painting. While this photo is a satirical take on the pandemic and how it changed us, it’s also a realistic, and saddening, depiction of how our perspectives have changed. People are required to social distance and quarantine, and may be reaching out and yearning for loved ones and friends that they cannot see - similar to how the hands in my photo reach out, but cannot touch and must wear gloves to do so. This photo also reminds us that quarantine has made us creative, as I never thought I’d need to take photos inside my apartment for a photography class.
Fifth Place
Still Standing
By Camille Sachs
Description: Since the pandemic, there has been a lot of emphasis on “building back better.” I’ve been struggling to full comprehend what that means. When in Georgetown, Malaysia I saw this beautiful street art that incorporated the trash bags that are often found blowing around the shoreline. I feel like a focus on building back better includes thinking of ways we transform and reuse the systems that existed before toward a new goal.
Finalists
Everyday routines
By Simone Weichenrieder
Description: The daily morning run, not on busy promenades, but on the trail run in the foothills of Wahiba Sands. A running team in Oman and their practice of social distancing.
Lonely Hikes - Nature as a refuge for a pandemic
By Simone Weichenrieder
Description: With increasing stress one recognizes the value of lonely paths, small hikes or abandoned national parks in the time of social distancing. These two hikers seek abandonment on one of Iceland's long-distance hiking trails, the Laugavegur Trail. Only with their tents it leads them through the abandoned highlands, Islands past volcanic landscapes and hot springs. Iceland was one of the first Nordic countries to welcome foreign hikers back with joy as early as June 2020 and, despite Corona, wanted to revive its outdoor tourism with great effort and safety measures.
Cape Coast Castle, Ghana
By Chris Joondeph
Description: This photo was taken on Spring Break in Ghana (luckily I made it home okay). Cape Coast Castle is one of the most infamous castles and departure points for slaves bound for the New World. The slaves lived in decrepit conditions while this photo - taken from the master's headquarters - looks out to a beautiful beach. This extreme contrast was striking, and while we like to think of this as something of the past, these great inequalities still exist today. Just look at COVID outcomes in black vs white communities in the US.
George Floyd Memorial, Minneapols, MN
By Chris Joondeph
Description: Similar to the inequalities seen in Ghana hundreds of years ago, they still exist in many ways today as seen this summer by the protests over George Floyd's death.
Road in Kiribati
By Christopher Cottle
Description: I was in Tarawa for a banking internship this past year. While the pandemic has not hit the nation (they haven't had a single case of Covid-19), they have had difficulty with trade, the flow of goods, capital, and people, as well as the constant danger of climate change. Tarawa is expected to be completely submerged within the century. While most of us worry about the uncertainty of the next year, the Kiribati people are faced with the uncertainty for the entire future.
Globalization in Madagascar
By Christopher Cottle
Description: This was taken February 2020, one week before I left Madagascar due to COVID-19. While I was there, many of the large shipping, fishing, and transportation companies left due to the pandemic, but life didn't change for most Malagasy people. Many citizens are stuck in the foreground of this picture, living day-by-day, and now, dealing with a global pandemic. They are excluded from the large international industries with whom they share their lands and waters.
Malta, Meta
By Mary Marks
Description: When I shot this on my first night in Malta, last November, the Valetta scene just seemed pleasantly moody amid the rumble of a corrupt government’s fall (a full-throated demonstration had been mere blocks away). Now it’s an allegory, from the trash bin to the solitary mode of transportation up mystically lit stairs along stained walls, to....