Judges
2020 Winners
Beihua Guo
Beihua Guo was born in Shanghai, China in 1998. He is an undergraduate student at Pitzer College, California. Majoring in studio art and environmental analysis, his work uses interdisciplinary techniques to address the themes of urban sprawl, environmental racism, and changing landscapes of the American West; he strives to use photography to document environmental problems and initiate social changes
Student: Winning Entry: A Salted Land
This image shows the escalating environmental disasters at the Salton Sea as well as how human activities shape the natural environments. Located in Southern California, the Salton Sea was accidentally created in 1905 when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal, flooding the Salton Basin. The manmade lake was once a popular tourist destination; however, agricultural runoff and other pollutants resulted in fish and bird die-offs as well as rapidly increasing salinity, threatening the entire ecosystem.
COVID-19 Reflections...
Zoom University, 2020
Zoom University explores the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on higher education. In March 2020, my college transitioned into remote learning and closed all campus facilities; all in-person activities on campus are halted or postponed, including graduation. In addition, universities in the United States might not reopen or offer in-person teaching in fall 2020. In this series of four images, I erased human beings and human belongings on photos appeared on college brochures and websites, and I replaced the shape with binary codes, emphasizing the new reality of remote learning through software.
