Student Focus 2018 - Sony World Photography Awards
While I was studiyng in Motivarte (a worldwide renowned photography school located in Buenos Aires, Argentina) the opprtunity to participate in the Student Focus 2018 was presented to me. The Student Focus is an award within the Sony World Photography Awards intended to promote the study of Photography among youth. The only way to participate on it is through one of the more than seven hundred schools around the world that are credited to do it.
For the first stage every school sent one photo (obtained usually throughout an internal contest) related to animals, pollution, nature, and so on.
This is the photo I presented:
Then, 10 finalists where selected out of those more than seven hundred schools. My photo and I were among those 10 finalists.
For the second stage every finalist had to present a serie of photos related with plastic pollution in the world. We should make people aware about the problem we are facing right now with our art.
A brief was provided to us with all the information and with a very surprising sentence: participants must avoid showing plastic in their photos.
So... how do you alert people about plastic pollution without showing plastic?
I realized that one of the answers was simply: show the beauty of animals that live in oceans, rivers and seas as they should live, with no plastic around them.
Every participant could only use the camera provided by the organization, a Full Frame Sony A7. It is a great camera but it did not make my work of taking photos to marine animals an easy task (low light, subjets in fast movement, no flash - they don't have eyelid so flash is harmfull to them - and so on).
What I tried to do with my work that you see below was humanize those animals, focus on their eyes.
Take portraits, not wild photos.
We have to beard in mind that they are defenseless against pollution, and we, humans, are the only ones who can help them.
I hope you like them
