Winners of the B&H Wilderness Photo Competition

B&H announced the grand prize winner of the B&H Wilderness Photo Competition as Jamie MacArthur’s “A Splash of Blue” from the Birding category. The B&H Wilderness Contest asks that you explore your world with a camera and understand that without conservation, what you photograph stands a chance of not being photographed by the next generation. Conservation is about awareness and your photographs and travel can make a difference.The other 8 categories are comprised of skilled and artistic photographers whose photographs were chosen from thousands upon thousands of entries.

Symphonies of Shapes by Jeremy Walter

“Style-wise, I’m insatiably attracted to architecture, particularly the geometry of patterns and forms inherent in that field. Simple lines and curves offer worlds of wonders to me. I love discovering things that already exist: hidden symphonies of shapes that mute the world around me. I’m more interested in the soldier rather than the army, the left middle finger of the Statute of Liberty rather than Ellis Island. Smaller and smaller I go until the subject emerges as a lone titan of height and pose. That’s my goal, anyway. Whether or not I succeed is another question.” Jeremy Walter

Something Essential by Jason Travis

By photographing an individual and the items he or she carries with them, Jason Travis reveals a portion of their identity. From the beginning, Jason found the series to be a great segue in connecting with people. “Catching up with old friends and meeting new ones became a part of the enjoyment. I’ve always been willing to photograph anyone who I find compelling, and I generally approach people on the spot, whether it is someone I know or a stranger. I’ve photographed people for Persona all over the US, as well as a few in Europe and Central America.”  “Some of my favorite findings tend to be the most unexpected or surprising. A quirky pipe, micro machines, radishes, or even a pistol may pop up in someone’s bag. Something essential to one person could be meaningless to the next, and I’m interested to hear why. I learn about my own life through the subjects I photograph, and I find that to be fascinating and compelling.” Other Jason’s pictures here.

Scrublands by Antoine Bruy

In 2006, while he was backpacking in Australia, the French photographer Antoine Bruy signed up with an international exchange program for volunteers who want to work on organic farms. The experience prompted a fascination with self-sufficient life styles and, in particular, with people who have adopted them after having spent years in cities. From 2010 to 2013, Bruy travelled across a number of European mountain ranges, including the Carpathians and the Pyrenees, to document people who are trying to gain, in his words, “greater energy, food, economic, or social autonomy.”

A Photographer by Night by Johan J Ingles-Le Nobel

“I work as a Technology Marketing Manager by day but I am a photographer by night. I was trained in photography by Ken Light at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco where I had a work scholarship back in the 80s, but I didn’t pick up a camera after than for 20 years! A Dutchman living in Surrey England, since rediscovering photography with a digital camera I have been lucky enough to have had my macro work on the front page of Flickr a few times, and featured on the BBC and…” read more on Johan J Ingles-Le Nobel website.

Fun and a Little Crazy by James Christopher

James Christopher takes simple, fun and a little crazy pictures. James lives and works in Los Angeles and he probably likes his privacy, it’s so difficult to find any information about him. Visit his website for more.

The Second Look by Maurizio Di Iorio

“I have never been attracted to photography that seizes the moment. It’s the second look that reveals the unveiling detail. Never the first”. I’ve written this sentence on my website’s homepage because I like to describe in a sharp (and sincere) way what my work is focused on, at least my current work. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the output of photographers that go around with the cameras to capture moments of daily life. Personally, however, I prefer meditation and control over the image, and the result must be based on my aesthetic tastes, composition principles and use of colour. The images that grab my attention contain some sort of little anomaly, a “capriccio”, possibly hermetic. Maurizio Di Iorio

 

Liquid Sulfur by Olivier Grunewald

Braving severe extremes in elevation, temperature, and exposure to toxic gases, Olivier Grunewald ventured into the sulfur mine located in the Kawah Ijen volcano in East Java, Indonesia. What he captured is unlike anything most of us have ever seen before. Did you know that liquid sulfur, when it ignites, flows in a river of blue flame? It looks as though we’ve reached the mouth of the underworld, that at any second, Hades will come traipsing through the toxic cloud and make a grab for our souls. Miners at Kawah Ijen climb to the mountain’s summit at 8660 ft., and then mine sulfur along the shores of a 650-ft.-deep lake of sulfuric acid in the volcano’s crater. Working at night in treacherous conditions, the workers—most of whom do not wear any sort of protective gear, including gas masks—harvest the sulfur from volcanic caves, carrying loads of 150 to 200 lb. in baskets balanced on their backs and shoulders. For $13 USD a day. Your job doesn’t suck quite as much, now, does it. “Grunewald lost one camera and two lenses to the harsh conditions in the crater, and when it was over, he threw all of his clothes in the garbage, as the sulfuric smell was so strong and would not wash out.” (via enpundit)

Something Authentic by Lou Noble

I spend as much time as possible running around LA taking pictures, it’s what I wake up thinking about, what I go to sleep thinking about.  Work is just something to do until I can get back to taking pictures. I love photography, see.  Love meeting new people, having adventures with folks, making art. Sure, it’s all about that connection with my subject, moving past the walls folks put up, capturing something authentic, showing what people are capable of when they let it all fall away. But dammit, I’m in this for the good times.  For the fun we can have making us some pictures, wandering through the city I’ve spent my entire life in. Long and short of it is, if it’s fun, it’s worth doing.  That’s why I do photography as often as possible. Lou Noble

To Study the Earth by NASA

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation’s largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.Please have a look at their Flickr page for detailed explanation of this amazing pictures.