Photographer

Lia Makrogamvrakis

Finalist in

Upper Primary Category

Written Statement

For my photos, I chose to base them off the environmental crisis by taking photos of nature. The Earth is in pain, and I chose to express that through my photos to show the fragility of it’s existence.

For the first photo, I wanted it to be black and white to really capture the theme. The only issue was that when I took the photo and tried to put a filter on it, it looked very different from what I’d imagined because of the lighting. So I grabbed my blanket, a fan, my desk lamp and my camera and set up a little photo shoot by draping the blanket over myself and the fan, then setting up my lamp to get the best lighting for the photo. I did this all on my bedroom floor. The photo looked much better after I edited it. For my other two photos I shot them outside in the natural light, making sure that the sun was in the right position as to not cast a shadow over my subject.

My photo of the bird’s egg represents the fragility of our wildlife. I got the egg from a nest that had been abandoned. The parents had left the nest behind when it was discovered by my mother when she was pruning some of our bushes.

My photo of the three dandelions represents the fragility of time. Though dandelions go through two stages of life, our Earth does not. It’s only a matter of time before we will no longer be able to call this planet ‘home’.

And finally, my photo of a dying flower represents that nothing lasts forever. We have been treating our Earth like there’s a planet B, but if we don’t start caring for it soon, there will be nothing left at all.