Perspectives is pleased to announce the winners and finalists of this year’s photo contest. Our team received nearly 60 photo submissions from members of the SAIS community around the world. This year, we asked for photos centered around topics of development, climate, and sustainability, to reflect the new DCS concentration at SAIS.
FIRST PLACE
Cannonball Comoros
By Chris Joondeph
A boy jumping off a building into the ocean in Moroni, Comoros. Comoros is one of the least visited countries in the world. This is three photos stitched together.
SECOND PLACE
Rituals, Indonesia
By Simone Weichenrieder
This photo reminds me of all the stories we don´t know, each of them representing a piece of a community´s beliefs and rituals. Unless one takes the time and fascination to listen and read about this mythology connected to culture and religion, we cannot even start to understand a society and what it considers important.
The Tirta Empul temple, a Hindu temple in Indonesia, tells the story of the magical king Mayadenawa who snuck into the camp of the God Indra, his enemy. In a battle between the god and the king, Mayadenawa created a beautiful but poisonous pond that the army would drink from after waking up. In the morning, the God Indra awoke to find numerous men dead and sick. Through his power, the God opened the ground and created the sacred healing springs of holy water, which is today known as Tirta Empul. The water in the pools is believed to have magical powers, and locals gather here in the mornings to purify themselves under the 30 springs that feed the pools.
THIRD PLACE (TIE)
Golden Inle Lake
By Kojun Nakashima
Inle Lake is located in the northern part of Myanmar. It gradually has become a tourist attracting spot. From the 14th century, indigenous Intha people have lived on the lake. Currently 70,000 people live on the lake. If you see the sunset of Inle Lake, you will never forget its beauty of the place.
However, the lake faces a problem of sustainability. 40% of lake size was lost during these 70 years, and the pace becomes faster. Deforestation around the lake causes large soil invasions into the lake. Wood demand increase for fuel usage (only 50% households are electrified in the country) or unplanned agriculture activities boosted such soil invasion. Sustainable development is an urgent agenda to save the beautiful lake.
THIRD PLACE (TIE)
The Test of Time
By Christian Lisko
The Ancient Egyptians built massive stone temples and tombs in the belief that these structures and the stories they tell would allow them to live on forever in the afterlife. Constructed well over 3,000 years ago, the Temple of Ramesses III still stands on the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor. To ensure the temple was completed before his death, the Pharaoh ordered work to start as soon as he took the throne. Decorated with scenes of his victory over the Sea Peoples, this temple – and the legacy of Ramesses III – has clearly stood the test of time. As we approach a critical inflection point in our handling of the climate crisis, I often wonder what our legacy will be. Do we have the foresight to take the necessary steps now to ensure our future survival? Can we overcome our differences to build a durable and sustainable future for our descendants? Will our cities still be standing 3,000 years from now? Or will Ramesses III manage to outlive us?
FINALISTS
Roof of the World, China
By Simone Weichenrieder
An older man in China on his pilgrimage to a famous Buddhist monastery.
Understanding, accepting and fostering culture, religion and rituals drive successful social engagement and sustainable help. Development can only be successful through will, belief, and strength of the involved local community.
Diamond Mines of Sierra Leone
By Chris Joondeph
Boy carrying mud up to the top of a diamond quarry near Kenema, Sierra Leone. Men that work here typically make $3 a day carrying mud and concrete from the water at the bottom of the quarry to the top where it can be sorted in search for diamonds. While hard work, it is one of the few jobs available in this remote part of the country.
Reds and Greens of a Bioindicator
By Alaine Johnson
Frogs are a bioindicator of an ecosystem’s health on every continent in the world besides Antarctica. This vibrant tree frog perched on the basket matches the reds and greens of ripening coffee cherries in Finca Idealista. Finca Idealista is a Nicaraguan coffee farm adjacent to a rainforest and typically receives many visitors from the fauna of the microclimate. Their presence on the farm indicates the absence of harmful pesticides or chemicals in favor of more sustainable, organic practices of coffee cultivation that embrace the presence frogs like this little one.
People’s life. It was slow, but steady. Now?
By Kojun Nakashima
Circular train station in Yangon, Myanmar. It was one ordinary day before COVID-19, before the coup.
The train runs 15km/h, moving slowly but steady as part of people’s life. The train is planned to be upgraded to run at 60km/h.
Myanmar opened its country and economy in 2012. Many positive changes and developments occurred since then. It was on the way. People were eager to make real change and peace to the country. It was slow, but steady like the circular train.
On February 1st 2021, everything was disrupted. However, people do not give up with hope. They struggle everyday, believing the brighter future to come soon.
Sámi near Innset, northern Norway
By Simone Weichenrieder
Also known as Laplanders, the Sámi people have a unique culture, traditions, and ancient languages, while this indigenous tribe is also counted among the Arctic peoples. When the Norwegian government claimed large areas of the north to be state-owned, the Sámi people were prohibited from herding their reindeers on these common grounds in the mountains anymore. However, through international sensation and advocacy, this ownership was successfully returned to the Sámi people in Finnmark.
Today, the Sámi have their own parliament in Kárášjohka, which dates to 1989. This case of acceptance and vital cooperation between state and indigenous people is a successful example of how indigenous peoples’ rights can be claimed and actively cared for by the indigenous community itself. The Sámi community and their traditions and culture are still intact today, unlike many ancient traditions worldwide. In my opinion, this is an amazing indigenous peoples’ rights case worth looking at to gather hope.
In the picture, a Sámi woman is searching for one of her young reindeers during the reindeer marking, which takes place in July under the midnight sun high up in the mountains of Lappland, northern Scandinavia. Every year young and old Sámi gather hundreds of their free reindeers all over Lappland with the help of motorcycles and sheepdogs on a suitable plane in the mountains. Around midnight, as soon as the herd arrives, the Sámi stand in the crowd of reindeers and antlers. Then, with their lassos, they catch the young animals for marking their ears before letting them free for the next year again.
The Stark Demarcation of Ubiquitous Palm Oil
By Alaine Johnson
Palm oil production is causing the stark destruction of Indonesia’s forests. The future of unregulated, unsustainable palm oil is written into the future on the left of the photo. On the right is the remaining forest in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Deforestation has ravaged the entire island of Borneo, mainly for oil palm production. Habitat loss endangers animals like the orangutan, at which a rate of 25 orangutans are lost per day.
Special Day Boy
By Kojun Nakashima
In Myanmar, Buddhism plays a very important role for people’s life.
In most Buddhist families, they have ceremony for their children entering priesthood.
It was such a special day for children, and special moment for their family.
Even though Myanmar may change from their development, they may not lose this tradition.
An Underwater Future: A-Okay or SOS?
By Alaine Johnson
An underwater shot of my two Maldivian friends, Jauza and Affan, snorkeling off their grandparents’ island called Kelaa. Maldives is the de facto case study for climate change, rising sea levels, and climate refugees. Projections give at most 30 years before the nation of atolls is underwater. Although they’re both giving an okay sign, their future is anything but certain. They’ve been together since they were 14 years old, studied overseas, maintained long-distance for years, and have been married for nearly three years now. Unlike the generations before them, it’s unclear if they’ll be able to stay and raise their families and bring their children on snorkeling trips like this one.
Rural morning market in Tampaksiring, Indonesia
By Simone Weichenrieder
On the morning market in a town close to Tampaksiring the local women meet daily, exchanging news and selling patiently vegetable, fruit, rice, fish, and meat. I got to know this woman when I was buying some breakfast from her, sweet rice on a banana leaf. The early morning is her favourite time of the day, she said, she loves to watch how the sun slowly rises over the near volcano, being reflected in the surrounding rice fields. When I showed her a photograph from the sunrise I had captured just some hours ago in the forest, she proudly gifted me this picture of herself and her tiny shop.
Blossoming between the buildings
By Alaine Johnson
Singapore is heralded as the ‘city in a garden,’ and biomimicry and smart cities are the mottos in architecture. These water lilies are found in a pond adjacent to the Art Science Museum, a lotus-shaped building which captures and recycles rainwater. Although Singapore is the financial hub of Southeast Asia (the skyscrapers behind are all headquarters of banking institutions), natural elements are intentionally integrated throughout the city’s design.
Climate and Glaciers, Vatnajökull, Iceland
By Simone Weichenrieder
When I look at this picture, I always wonder what this Icelandic man sitting in front of Iceland´s biggest glacier is thinking. I guess our thoughts go in entirely different directions, he might think about the past and I wonder about the future, and still, we worry about the same.
Due to the increase in global temperature, Vatnajökull has lost an average of about one metre of its thickness per year over the last 15 years. Okjökull, a small glacier in west Iceland, has already disappeared completely.