Haunting images from photo prize show the ‘beauty and tragedy' of our planet
A melting glacier draped in the tattered remains of a thermal blanket, a ghostly abandoned mining town in Chile, and an ancient tree marked by floodwaters are among the winning images of the Earth Photo 2025 competition.
The award — created in 2018 by Forestry England, the UK's Royal Geographic Society and visual arts consultancy Parker Harris — aims to showcase the issues affecting the climate and life on our planet.
More than 1,500 images and videos were submitted to this year's competition by photographers and filmmakers from all over the world. The winners were announced last night at a ceremony at London's Royal Geographical Society, ahead of an exhibition of the imagery at the same location.
Photographer Lorenzo Poli took the top prize for his series of photos titled 'Autophagy,' which document — in black and white — the Chuquicamata mine in Chile, one of the largest and deepest open-pit copper mines in the world, plunging nearly 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) into the Earth.
Poli captures the vastness of the site, with moonlike landscapes of endless gray. One photo shows an abandoned miners' town and cemetery which is gradually being enveloped by the expanding mineral ore extraction. In a press release he said the photograph highlights the 'unrelenting expansion of extractive endeavors' and he hopes that it serves to highlight unsustainable mining practices.
Through the competition, Earth Photo wants to open people's eyes to the stories behind the pictures and encourage conversation and action.
'These compelling images and storytelling bring us closer to landscapes, wildlife and communities, engaging us all with the conservation work underway and the new creative solutions needed ahead. Intensely thought-provoking photography and film like this deepens our understanding and can inspire all of us to action,' Hazel Stone, national curator of contemporary art at Forestry England and a member of the jury, told CNN.
Other winning imagery included a photograph titled 'Waterline,' by Mateo Borrero, that depicts declining flood waters in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. In one photo, a man from the Ticuna indigenous people stands beside a gigantic ancient Ceiba tree, the waterline from previous rainy seasons visible just below his shoulders.
'This photograph, taken in May 2024, shows that the water level should be at its maximum; however, rainfall was scarce and, by the peak of the rainy season, non-existent,' explained Borrero in a press release.
Drought is increasingly becoming a problem in the region, with some areas of the Amazon reportedly seeing river levels at their lowest in 120 years. This has disrupted ecosystems and affected millions of people who rely on the rivers for transport, food and income.
Louise Fedotov-Clements, prize chair and director of Photoworks UK, said in a press release that the images bring us 'face to face' with the reality of the climate crisis.
'Within each edition of Earth Photo we see a compelling diversity of international projects using these powerful visual tools to share the beauty and tragedy of life on our planet. Through the lens, film and photography transforms climate change from an abstract threat into a visceral reality, capturing not only the damage, but the resilience of communities and ecosystems in the face of environmental crisis,' she said.
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