Impakter
  • News
    • Culture
      • Art
      • Cinema
      • Entertainment
      • Literature
      • Music
      • Photography
    • Style
      • Architecture
      • Design
      • Fashion
      • Foodscape
      • Lifestyle
    • Society
      • Business
      • Foreign Affairs & Politics
      • Health
      • Tech
      • Science
      • Start-up
    • Impact
      • Eco Life
      • Circular Economy
      • COP26
      • CityLife
        • Copenhagen
        • San Francisco
        • Seattle
        • Sydney
      • Sustainability Series
        • SDGs Series
        • Shape Your Future
        • 2030: Dream or Reality
      • Philanthropy
        • United Nations
        • NGO & Charities
        • Essays
  • Environment
  • Sustainability Index
  • Partners
  • About
    • Team
      • Global Leaders
      • Contributors
      • Write for Impakter
        • Republishing Content
        • Permissions and Copyright
        • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Culture
      • Art
      • Cinema
      • Entertainment
      • Literature
      • Music
      • Photography
    • Style
      • Architecture
      • Design
      • Fashion
      • Foodscape
      • Lifestyle
    • Society
      • Business
      • Foreign Affairs & Politics
      • Health
      • Tech
      • Science
      • Start-up
    • Impact
      • Eco Life
      • Circular Economy
      • COP26
      • CityLife
        • Copenhagen
        • San Francisco
        • Seattle
        • Sydney
      • Sustainability Series
        • SDGs Series
        • Shape Your Future
        • 2030: Dream or Reality
      • Philanthropy
        • United Nations
        • NGO & Charities
        • Essays
  • Environment
  • Sustainability Index
  • Partners
  • About
    • Team
      • Global Leaders
      • Contributors
      • Write for Impakter
        • Republishing Content
        • Permissions and Copyright
        • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
Impakter
No Result
View All Result
Home Culture

Top Photographers Use Art to Raise Environmental Awareness

Works by 100 photographers from around the world will be sold by Vital Impacts to provide financial support to community-orientated conservation organisations

byHenrietta McFarlane
December 9, 2021
in Culture, Environment, Photography
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

100 of the world’s best photographers have come together to support the conservation organisation, Vital Impacts. Vital Impacts, founded by award-winning photographer Ami Vitale and visual journalist Eileen Mognoni, is a non-profit organisation supporting conservation projects. The organisation provides financial assistance as well as amplifying the narratives of community-oriented projects dedicated to protecting and preserving the natural world.

As founder Ami Vitale said in an interview with My Modern Met, “photography has the unique ability to transcend all languages and help us understand our deep connections to one another and to all of life on this planet.” Each image has a different backstory but all of their separate storylines are tied to protecting human and wildlife habitats. 

Jane Goodall. Self Portrait. Dr. Jane Goodall spent many hours sitting on a high peak with binoculars or a telescope, searching the forest below for chimpanzees. Photo Credit: Jane Goodall

Dr. Jane Goodall’s “self-portrait” tells an iconic story of the relationship between the individual human and the much bigger natural world. Goodall even tells Vital Impact about the process of taking this photo back in 1962. “On [her] own, very high up in the hills” and thinking “what a great photo this would make”, the primatologist describes “find[ing] a place where there was a tree that was just right for balancing the camera.” She adds that it “was in the days before digital so I had to wait a long time before I got the results back from National Geographic.”

Reimagining humanity’s relationship with nature

Goodall’s photo is a prime example of a story that, as Ami Vitale puts it, asks humans to “reimagine their relationship with nature”. The layers of the vast and expansive valley pictured beyond Goodall are awe-inspiring. Vitale believes that “what’s going to save us is believing in the wonder of the world”, because “wonder allows us to get beyond ways of thinking and to reimagine our future together”. 

Vitale alludes to the idea of the 19th-century Romantic’s notion of the sublime: a meeting of the subjective internal (emotional) and objective external (the natural world), “where one allows emotion to overwhelm rationality as we experience the wonder of creation”. Indeed, Goodall’s photo is vaguely reminiscent of the Romantic artist, Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea Fog, in that it pictures an isolated human figure experiencing the emotional pull of the much bigger natural world. 

Each and every photographer’s work goes beyond presenting viewers with a well-executed snapshot of a particular scene of nature, they are taken in such a way and with such profound individual stories, that they become objects of wonder. 

However, contrary to 19th-century author Mary Shelly’s message in Frankenstein that nature’s powers are “immutable”, these photographs represent an understanding that the natural world is not “immutable” and that we must protect it if it is to survive. 


Related Articles: Environmental Photographer of the Year Awards Go to Photographs Featuring Child Victims of Climate Change | ‘We Are History’: Climate Change Through Global Art

The future is in human hands

60% of net proceeds from art sales are going to Big Life Foundation, Great Plains Foundation’s Project Ranger, Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots, and SeaLegacy. All of these organisations work to protect the most endangered ecosystems from around the world, especially those impacted by global warming and climate change. 

Vitale says “we all need to do all we can to care for the plants and creatures that inhabit the earth. They are fellow travelers in this universe. Our future happiness depends on them.” The photographer Jennifer Hayes’, Seeking Shelter, captures this message. 

Seeking Shelter. A harp seal pup seeks shelter from the relentless winds that scour the sea ice covering the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Photo Credit: Jennifer Hayes

In the photo above is a harp seal pup seeking shelter from winds that scour the sea ice covering the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Harp seal pups are born on the sea ice covering the Gulf of St. Lawrence in February. They are nursed for around two weeks before they are abandoned and pups must learn to survive on their own. In years that reflect higher than normal temperatures causing weak ice formation, mortality rates amongst young seals are highest. Hayes captures the pup’s extreme vulnerability in this situation as well as pointing to the human-created threat of global warming. 

Vitale wants people to understand that it is “not too late” to realise our connection to nature and channel it into small acts of conservation. 

Kamara and Kilifi. Kilifi, an 18-month-old rhino and his keeper, Kamara. Photo Credit: Ami Vitale

Pictured above is a photo taken by Vitale of Kilifi, an 18-month-old rhino and his keeper, Kamara. “Kenya’s black rhinos population has plummeted to near extinction but their numbers are again rising in Kenya due to the efforts by the people and government to protect them.” Kamara spends up to 12 hours a day watching over baby rhinos in order to ensure their survival. This beautifully captured story is representative of humanity taking responsibility in order to continue to coexist with nature in this world. 

The takeaway message from this exquisitely curated series of photographs is that “we are all so disconnected and don’t realize how we are interconnected. Everything we do impacts one another and shapes this world”, says Vitale. The current print sale will last until December 31st, 2021. Head over to Vital Impacts to find out more or to purchase a photograph.


Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com. — In the Featured Photo: Attentive Cat. Young Toto a leopard cub in the OMC in the Mara ecosystem in Kenya discovering her neighbours from up high.  Featured Photo Credit: Beverly Joubert. 

Tags: Climate ChangeConservationnaturephotographywildlife
Previous Post

Working At The Intersection Of Sustainability And Profitability

Next Post

Transition to Renewable Energy: Is it Economically Viable in a Coal Town?

Henrietta McFarlane

Henrietta McFarlane

Henrietta McFarlane is a journalist at Impakter. She has recently graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Music and has grown up in both the UK and Australia. She enjoys writing about Indigenous Australian culture and has previously worked as a columnist for Varsity Newspaper where she wrote articles on topics such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the representation of Indigenous Australians in cinema.

Related Posts

Are Electric Cars A Cure-All for Sustainable Mobility, Or Just One Part of A Larger Puzzle?
Energy

Are Electric Cars A Cure-All for Sustainable Mobility, Or Just One Part of A Larger Puzzle?

February 8, 2023
fossil fuel profits
Business

Energy Injustice: As Fossil Fuel Profits Double, Exxon Sues EU While BP Cuts Climate Targets

February 7, 2023
vaccinating wild animals
Climate Change

Vaccinating Wild Animals: Key Conservation Tool or Step Too Far? 

February 7, 2023
Next Post
Transition to Renewable Energy: Is it Economically Viable in a Coal Town?

Transition to Renewable Energy: Is it Economically Viable in a Coal Town?

Recent News

Are Electric Cars A Cure-All for Sustainable Mobility, Or Just One Part of A Larger Puzzle?

Are Electric Cars A Cure-All for Sustainable Mobility, Or Just One Part of A Larger Puzzle?

February 8, 2023
By Buying Your Smartphone Refurbished Rather Than New, You Can Save Over 77kg of CO2

By Buying Your Smartphone Refurbished Rather Than New, You Can Save Over 77kg of CO2

February 8, 2023
Our World Is Changing Ever Faster: What This Means For Our Survival

Our World Is Changing Ever Faster: What This Means For Our Survival

February 8, 2023
impakter-logo-light

Impakter informs you through the eco news site and empowers your sustainable lifestyle with its eco products marketplace.

Visit here IMPAKTER ECO for your eco products needs.

Registered Office Address

32 Lots Road, London
SW10 0QJ, United Kingdom


IMPAKTER Limited

Company number: 10806931

Impakter is a publication that is identified by the following International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is the following 2515-9569 (Printed) and 2515-9577 (online – Website).


Office Hours - Monday to Friday

9.30am - 5.00pm CEST


Email

stories [at] impakter.com

About Us

  • Team
  • Contributors
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Partners

By Audience

  • Lifestyle
  • Green Finance
  • Culture
  • Society
  • Style
  • Impact

Impakter Platforms

  • Media
  • Index

© 2023 IMPAKTER. All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • ECO Products Shop – Try now!
  • Culture
  • Style
  • Society
  • Impact
  • Sustainability Index
  • About
    • Partners
    • Team
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy

© 2023 IMPAKTER. All rights reserved.

Impakter.com uses cookies to enhance your experience when visiting the website and to serve you with advertisements that might interest you. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.