Views From Around the World

"Zayanderoud is the main river running in the middle of Isfahan city, and the whole city is built based on the river. After hundreds of years, because of idiotic political decisions, the river dried up, and now we have a long desert in the middle of the city. I grew up fishing and cycling by this river now it’s all gone."

"In January 2024, my colleagues and I conducted an Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) investigation project in Yunnan Province, China. We visited various historical towns and local villages, including this small pocket of antiquity, where the reputation of its Pu’er Tea wafts afar to the whole country and beyond.

Here, the very spirit of the Chinese people: cultivating, processing, brewing, and savouring tea, is mirrored in the timeworn yet enduring brick walls. It is a place where generations of many single families have devoted themselves to the art of tea, their lives inextricably intertwined with its growth.

Though nestled in a remote corner of China, it is rare to find a Chinese person who has not grown up without tasting Pu'er for even merely once. The tea, the people, and the stories that emerge from this land all leave a profound and lingering aftertaste."

"This image shows an old, rusted car abandoned among fallen leaves and wild grass. Once a means of daily travel and part of someone’s life journey, it now stands still, slowly merging with nature.

The car represents a fragment of the past — a witness to countless stories and moments that helped shape someone’s life. Although it no longer serves its original purpose, it remains a silent monument to the journeys once taken. This place is more than just a physical location; it’s a space where the past lingers and continues to shape who we are today."

"Blackrock diving tower is a popular swimming site in Salthill, a small village or suburb in Galway City. During the pandemic, Blackrock was a lifeline for many people - that is, after the beaches were opened for the public again. Blackrock is a meeting point and in use throughout the year - the current tower was built in 1953, on dark grey granite.

I met Eamon when photographing there in January 2022. The water was freezing cold. We didn't know each other but he asked me if I could take his picture when he dives from the tower - which I did. We later did a trip to Mayo together during storm Franklin. Eamon, originally from County Mayo, was waiting to get back to Australia, so that he could continue his medical studies there."

"This is a picture of the wheelchair accessible lift at my local print studio. Disabled spaces hold a special space in my heart, often made with no thought to aesthetics, and yet they can often become places of deep connection. These often overlooked spaces can feel like a portal, as they are not typically meant to be well-trafficked or inhabited, simply moved through. In that design, there is capacity for intense, unsettling, and oddly captivating moments.

This lift has no ceiling, so you can watch the doors around you rise and fall. It moves very slowly, and there is no cell reception so in the midst of juggling the different moving pieces of printmaking projects, I am placed in an isolated portal and forced to slow down. The studio painted them orange, put thought into making them visually fun even if just for a moment. The result is odd and captivating, something most people who enter never see of pay any mind to. These spaces are Uniquely Ours as disabled people. This is my portal."

"This is Kolya. He grew up in an orphanage. He spent several years in prison during his lifetime, filling his working hands with tattoos. He has his own farm in the hamlet of 50 people, where the number of animals seems to exceed the number of all residents: pigs, horses, geese, sheep…

After meeting him and a tour of the estate on that foggy morning -28℃ I fainted. That first encounter with him became so ingrained in my memory that this summer I returned to Listvyagovo to make a documentary about him."

"This particular image was taken at the bus stop I used every day for six years on my way to university. For the first two years, it was the route to my Literature studies—which I eventually abandoned—and for the following four years, it became the path to my Cinema degree.

This landscape became one of the most defining markers of my journey: a daily encounter in the same place, among ever-changing people and under shifting skies—day and night, rain and sun. It stands as a reminder of the trajectory of my younger self, full of eagerness and discovery in the midst of the university experience."

"Sundarbans has a unique and diverse ecosystem, biodiversity and climate resilience. The forest protects and saves a huge hinterland region from devastating cyclones every year. Without this place my existence and that of many communities would not have been possible. However it itself is getting destroyed because of various reasons such as climate change, increasing water salinity, afforestation, lack of culture etc.

The saline tidal waters recede and emerge at regular intervals bringing new hopes and promises to live and move on. This photograph clicked by me shows the boats floating on high tide water, which will sail soon to collect fish, vegetables or support daily life needs. I have sailed several times, only to return back to this bank, with greater realisations of connection of self and this place and more.

The water infested with crocodiles and abutting land densely forested with man-eating tigers, poisonous snakes, this place reminds me of my survival. And not just mine it takes me to the roots of how humans have survived against all odds for decades yet not compromising on the sustainability. A harmony of people with place that made us, exist here perceptibly.

The sublime beauty could only be experienced sitting at the bank of this creek, filling my mind with the awe that this place not only made me but protected me even though being wild and dangerous. I personally feel grateful and hopeful every-time I visit this nature’s shrine."

"I was on the pedestrian overpass near my home, searching for a suitable subject to photograph. I noticed a group of young teenage boys biking along the bike lane. They paused for a moment to chat with each other, and that was when I took the photograph. I found this moment interesting because these days, young people are often preoccupied with their mobile devices, making it rare to see them engaging in physical activities like biking or hiking."

"I spent my formative adult years in New York - wandering and discovering what the city had to offer. The city never failed to surprise me with the beauty of people, its surroundings, and culture. 8 million people recreating themselves into dreams of what their life can and should be."

"On the road that leads to my family's mountain village, there are road signs riddled with buckshot holes, as they always have been. They are no longer replaced. The magnificent landscape of rocks and endemic pine trees, close to the river, bears the marks of a wrath that is both historical and intimate. This is a land of shepherds, hunters, fishermen and poets."

"Since childhood I always dreamed of becoming a traveler. Listening to the craziest, almost fantastic stories from my father who was a seaman, I imagined how I would start my own journey. So I followed in father’s footsteps and graduated a maritime university. But as we all know, expectation never equals reality and nowadays seamen don’t have as much time and freedom as 20 years ago.

Photography and journalism are two things that let me see wider, look deeper and notice beauty in simple things. I realised that I don’t want to lose all these moments that surround us everyday, no matter how dark and sad they can be, cause memory is a tricky thing.

I spent at the sea long enough to learn how to notice and capture beauty in my daily routine. What once seemed like an endless journey has turned into a journey that I was lucky enough not to get stuck on."

"This was the place where I lived during my undergraduate years. On a winter morning, just after the heavy snow had melted, I stepped outside and came across this scene. I captured it as a way of holding onto one of the most meaningful memories from those years."

"I photographed Angus Kupinas’ room in a Syracuse student house, where a blow-up doll hangs from the ceiling wrapped in scarves, a playful decoration gifted by a roommate’s dad. Music posters, sports jerseys, an Arsenal scarf, and shelves lined with $1 CDs fill the walls. The space is alive with personality and humour. What was once bare and impersonal has become a reflection of Kupinas’ quirks and passions — a place transformed into one of the places that made us."