Mustafah Abdulaziz – Kroo Bay water point; Freetown, Sierra Leone, 2012

The Syngenta Photography Award winners have now been announced and there will now be an open Exhibition at Somerset House, to showcase the fantastic standard of entry. The winner of the professional commission was Mustafah Abdulaziz of the USA, with the open competition winner announced as Benedikt Partenheimer from Germany. Now in its second year the award, which is an international competition, aims to stimulate dialogue and raise awareness about significant global challenges through photography. The exhibition opening today is centred on the theme of ‘Scarcity-Waste’, which is coincidentally the subject of this year’s competition. The exhibition will present around 90 works by 42 photographers from 21 different countries, making it a diverse experience.

The exhibition itself will look to highlight what the competition this year was all about, delivering some of the most powerful and thought provoking responses, to one of human kind’s biggest challenges. Such a theme was chosen because ensuring enough water, land and food for our future generations has become fundamental in today’s society, proving one of the strongest political and environmental issues of our time. Not only do the photographers featured illustrate the theme in a striking and ambitious way, but they have also taken on the role of courageous advocates, displaying deep concern and commitment to the environment.

Curated by Candlestar, the exhibition is divided into themed rooms. The first two of those rooms looks to illustrate the pressures on the world today by looking at certain factors, such as over-population and an increased demand on resources. In another room, they address other issues involving the environment, such as poverty and mass-consumption. An exhibition that displays fantastic imagery, that is also sobering and thought provoking, is one that is surely not to miss. The imagery highlights the desperation and stark problems facing the human population in the world today, with the winners highlighting poverty and pollution. The runners up also deserve a mention here, with Rasel Chowdhury from Bangladesh and Richard Allenby-Pratt from the UK taking second and third place respectively in the professional commission. Camille Michel of France and Stefano De Luigi of Italy take second and third respectively in the open competition. The Exhibtion opens today and will run until April 10th with free admission.

Somerset House

Strand

London

WC2R 1LA