"Geography in Focus"
Association of American Geographers Photo Competition
Winners Announced and Displayed at AAG Annual Meeting in Seattle
The Association of American Geographers (AAG) created the “Geography in Focus” photo competition to celebrate geography and geographers at the 2011 AAG Annual Meeting. Nearly 200 photographs were submitted in three categories: Careers in Geography, Diversity and Inclusion within Geography, and Unique Landscapes and Places. Amateur and professional photographers were encouraged to submit photographs and AAG members and non-members could participate. A panel of four judges assembled by the AAG selected three overall winners and five honorable mentions. Photographs were judged on uniqueness, quality, and relevance to the field of geography. In addition to displaying their photographs at the Annual Meeting, the AAG awarded cash prizes to the winners ($350 to the first place winner, $100 to the second place winner, and $50 to the third place winner).
The winning photographs and honorable mentions are displayed below.
First place
Nicola Gregson, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield (Unique Landscapes and Places)
The foreshore north of Chittagong in Bangladesh is the end of the line for one third of the once mighty ships that carry global trade. There thousands of poorly paid workers break them up to start new lives as steel construction rods for housing, machinery in factories and furniture in homes.
Second place
Jon Bathgate, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (Careers in Geography)
This photo shows Geography Professor Leslie Duram looking over the 300ft cliff at Dun Aengus on the Aran Island of Inishmore, County Galway, Ireland. Professor Duram spent a year at the National University of Ireland at Galway as a Fulbright Scholar.
Third place
Kevin McManigal, University of Montana, Missoula (Diversity and Inclusion within Geography)
Map meeting with Mongolian nomad family in their ger, just south of the Turgen Mountains. This research retraced the 1910 Royal Geographical Society expedition to the range and repeated their photographs in order to investigate a century of glacial change.
Honorable Mention
Aliyu Barau, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Unique Landscapes and Places)
The picture shows a weathered grantic rock at Rurum , Southern Kano, Nigeria. It depicts coupling of human and nature system in Africa. From bottom to top, the picture shows arable/pasture land, hamlet, trees and shattered hill. It symbolises sustainability of rural Africa through land, food, animals and shelter.
Jon J. Kedrowski, Central Washington University (Careers in Geography)
On an early calm, crisp, and cold winter morning on high ridges of the Front Range in Colorado, I caught my colleague in an exceptional background including Greys (14,270'), Torreys (14,267'), and Grizzly (13,500') as we headed out to collect data from one of our high altitude research sites.
Tanushree Chowdhury, Bellevue, WA (Unique Landscapes and Places)
This picture was taken in Brown Bluff in the Antarctic peninsula. It was a cold, windy grey day when while cruising in the ocean we happen to see Adelie Penguins enjoying themselves on the blue iceberg. The grayish sky and the blue iceberg provided a surrealism that felt unearthly.
Bradley L. Garrett, Riverside, CA (Unique Landscapes and Places)
Urban exploration, sometimes referred to as recreational trespass, is a practice of researching, discovering and physically exploring temporary, obsolete, abandoned and derelict areas within built environments. I have been conducting ethnographic research with groups of urban explorers in Europe for the past 2 years. This photo was taken at a junction in the Effra Sewer the runs underneath Brixton in London with Yaz and Otter, two urban explorers in London. This sewer was built by Joseph Bazzalgette in the mid-19th century and is considered worldwide to be an engineering wonder, though few have ever seen it.
Tyler Depke, Texas A&M University, Department of Geology and Geophysics (Diversity and Inclusion Within Geography)
At over 13,000ft, Tinku students of Potosí, Bolivia dance in a parade to celebrate the 5th year of autonomy for La Universidad Pública de El Alto. As urban sprawl increases, as many as 36 indigenous groups of Bolivia are learning how to unify while maintaining their heritage.
About the Judges
The panel of judges included:
- David Coronado, Communications Director, Association of American Geographers
- Karen Gibbs, Manager, Strategic Partnerships, National Geographic Society Education Foundation
- Dmitrii Siderov, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, California State University, Long Beach (and coordinator of CSULB's long-running photography contest)
- Ramin Zamanian, Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Geography, Oklahoma State University (and coordinator of the Landscape Photography Exhibit for the Cultural Geography Specialty Group).
