1st Place
Meeting our Needs by Maureen Ruddy Burkhart
Category: Desertification
Taken in Xiang Sha Wan, Inner Mongolia, China, on the eastern edge of the Gobi Desert, near the Yellow River. The smokestacks seen in the distance are from the City of Erdos. Taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, aperture priority, shutter speed: 500, f/10, ISO 250, w/EF 24~105 f/4.0 lens. Outdoor temperature … frigid!
2nd Place
Undulating Hills near Wahoo, NE by John Griebsch
Category: Deforestation
My aerial photographs present a sense of selective design applied to an extremely small, but significant area of the vast landscape over which I fly. I find the need to make geographical sense of the earth, as well as the need to make visual sense of a photograph. I work with ambiguity of scale; the strong graphic quality of nature; and with the hand of man upon nature.
3rd Place
Old Truck in Brittlebush by Gary Dorothy
Category: The Automobile and Its Legacy
The bold shapes and relative permanence of an old truck remind us of the hills and mountains. Its windows showcase a profusion of brittlebush flowers. In the end, long after the truck has rusted away, the golden blossoms will probably return each spring.
Congratulations to all the photographers for their incredible submissions.