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Stuff.tv
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Stuff.tv
WIN! Tickets to the Amateur Photographer Festival of Documentary Photography
Our friends at Amateur Photographer are hosting another Festival of Photography. This time around, the subject is documentary photography. Again it takes place at the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington, London, UK. The date is 9 August 2025 – and you could win two tickets to the event worth £79. Throughout the day you will hear from a series of world class experts in Documentary photography. They'll give an insight into their work, how they captured some of the world's best known documentary images and how you can too. Confirmed speakers include: Zed Nelson, Laura Pannack, Jillian Edelstein, Jon Nicholson and more. We've got full speaker details at the bottom of this article. The event takes place at the Royal Geographical Society in London's South Kensington museum district. So whether you're an experienced photographer looking to refine your skills or a budding enthusiast eager to explore documentary photography, the day will cover a wide range of expertise and interests Amateur Photographer magazine is the UK's biggest-selling photography magazine. First published in October 1884, it holds the distinction of being the world's oldest consumer photography magazine at over 140 years old. It remains the only printed weekly photo magazine. Festival of Documentary Photography key details Dates: Saturday 9 August 2025 Location: The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), 1 Kensington Gore, London, England – SW7 2AR Ticket prices: £39.99 for full access or £14.99 for individual theatre talks. Festival of Documentary Photography key speakers ZED NELSON: Guns, Beauty and the Anthropocene This year's Sony World Photography Awards winner Zed Nelson takes us on a revealing journey into humankind's increasingly illusory relationship with the natural world, and behind the scenes on three previous award-winning projects. JON NICHOLSON: Auto Exposure Jon takes us through his 40-year career in sports reportage, documenting the culture of everything from Formula 1 (featuring the likes of Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill) to banger racing, as well as some of his other work. SIMON HILL & JOHN BULMER: The North Revisited John Bulmer's colour images of northern England taken in the 1960s and '70s remain a cornerstone of British documentary photography. Simon Hill recently revisited those communities and they discuss their two bodies of work. KRISHNA SHETH: Life on the Picture Desk Recently appointed Director of Photography for The Economist, Krishna will talk about her career, which began as a picture researcher at the Express newspaper, before becoming Deputy Photography Director at The Telegraph Magazine. JILLIAN EDELSTEIN: Sharing the Story Jillian shares stories related to managing reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa, personal stories linked to Ukraine and Palestine, and local stories on a range of topics. Plus, how commercial work helps to fund the personal projects. CAROL ALLEN-STOREY: Telling Women's Stories Carol discusses her humanitarian documentary work photographing issues affecting women and children around the world for NGOs such as UNICEF, Save the Children and Comic Re LAURA PANNACK: Documentary Portraiture Laura discusses her portraiture and social documentary work, which has been extensively exhibited and published worldwide, including at the National Portrait Gallery, the Houses of Parliament, Somerset House and the Royal Festival Hall. Terms and Conditions Competitions close at midday on 24/07/25 and the winners will be drawn and notified within one week of the closing date. If our winner fails to respond after two attempts at contact and within one week of the first contact, a new winner will be drawn. The draw is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Entry is free and open to residents of the UK aged over 18. Only one entry permitted per person, no bulk entries will be accepted. No cash alternative. The prize is not transferable. The prize from Kelsey Media Ltd, publishers of Amateur Photographer, is valid for the Festival of Photography – Documentary, taking place at the Royal Geographical Society in London on 9th August 2025. Entrants to the prize draw consent to Kelsey Publishing Ltd receiving their contact details in order to select a winner. Employees of Kelsey Media Ltd and any other persons or employees of companies associated with this Competition and members of the families and households of any such persons, are not eligible to enter this Competition. Any such entries will be invalid.
Daily Maverick
17-06-2025
- Science
- Daily Maverick
From anti-apartheid to Antarctic rights — the radical legal vision of Cormac Cullinan
The South African lawyer believes the melting continent should be recognised as a legal person. The growing momentum behind the idea — and a major polar award — suggests the world may be ready to listen. When Cormac Cullinan strolled into the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London earlier this month, he thought he was there to answer a few questions for a panel of judges. Cullinan, a Cape Town-based lawyer and a figurehead of the international Antarctic Rights initiative, had been shortlisted for the 2025 Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions. He insists he had no reason to expect he would win the £10,000 prize and a hand-struck silver medal. Fellow nominees included polar luminaries — scientists, conservationists and contemporary explorers. Sir Ernest Shackleton's granddaughter, Alexandra, was a judge. 'I was surprised to be shortlisted,' says Cullinan, the environmental lawyer who helped suspend Shell's seismic surveys off South Africa's Wild Coast. Cullinan had let the organisers know he would be passing through London in early June, in case they wanted to meet him. The RGS's official line was that the final decision was yet to be made. When they asked him to meet the executive, he assumed it was just part of the shortlisting process. 'It was a really amazing building,' he says. 'On one corner is a statue of Shackleton, on the other David Livingstone. These great explorers had been members.' He sat at the end of a table, surrounded by the RGS top brass and a publicity team. 'I thought they were filming it because not all the judges were there.' What happened next blindsided the South African. 'I didn't think my beard was rugged enough' 'They said, 'Before you go, there's just one more thing.' They put a laptop in front of me,' Cullinan recalls. 'It was the Shackleton award video. When it came to the end, it said, 'And the 2025 winner is… ' And this picture of me came up.' The organisers had choreographed the moment to the last detail, complete with a photo shoot and Shackleton expedition-style jersey on hand — modelled after the one worn by the Irish explorer in a famous photograph. 'At least it made me look more … Shackletonian,' Cullinan smiles. 'Even if I didn't think my beard was rugged enough.' Cullinan, the legal pioneer behind the concept of earth jurisprudence, says the award is a collective recognition for the Antarctic Rights initiative. They had just met in Devon, followed by academic discussions in Oxford. 'It was extraordinary synchronicity,' Cullinan says. Cullinan hopes the recognition from the Shackleton Medal will open doors. 'This thing will give us huge leverage,' he says. An inclusive voice for the imperilled region At the core of the initiative is the radical idea that the frozen – but melting — Antarctic continent and surrounding ocean should be recognised as a legal person with its own voice in global governance. The initiative's draft declaration supports human involvement in the region, such as science and activities like controlled tourism and fishing. Even so, Cullinan argues that Antarctica's representative voice 'would be a pure kind of voice for nature and Antarctica'. This probably means refining the Antarctic Treaty System in its present form, he argues, which he describes as secretive and often gridlocked by geopolitics. 'I had to unlearn what my culture had taught me' Cullinan's path to the Shackleton Medal began on Durban's segregated beaches during the final decade of apartheid. 'I cut my teeth as an anti-apartheid activist,' Cullinan says. A 1980 student exchange to New Zealand exposed him to an unflinching external view of his home country. As a founding chair of the Durban Democratic Association, an affiliate of the non-racial United Democratic Front (UDF), Cullinan remembers organising 'street marches to go on to segregated beaches and many different things … 'I had been born into the oppressor class. When the scales fell from my eyes, I had to unlearn a lot of what I had absorbed unconsciously from apartheid society. I ended up leaving the country to avoid conscription, because I wasn't going to fight for that army.' Thomas Berry, the American eco-theologian, gave Cullinan the concept to move from political activism into jurisprudence. That idea of unlearning dominance would become the philosophical heart of what Cullinan later called earth jurisprudence: a radical reimagining of the law and seeing it as intrinsic to the ecological order. 'Berry taught me that the philosophy of law only deals with humans and corporations. But legal philosophy needs to deal with all our relationships — including with beings other than humans,' Cullinan says. A global movement for Antarctica — 'modelled' on the UDF This led to his 2002 book Wild Law, which set out the founding principles of earth jurisprudence. From this grew a movement. In 2010, Cullinan was asked by Bolivian campaigners to lead the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. Bolivia's legislative assembly passed the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth that year — around the same time the lawyer helped co-found the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. 'To my mind it was modelled quite closely on the UDF in South Africa,' Cullinan says. 'An alliance of organisations of many kinds, united around a few core principles.' That idea — with nature as a legal subject and ecocide as the crime — neared a possible new frontier when Cullinan was approached by German MEP Carola Rackete in 2021. Rackete asked him: Could rights of nature be applied to Antarctica itself? 'I thought, 'Well, if Antarctica is going to have rights, it has to be a person in the eyes of the law,'' he remarks. 'I realised you're talking for the first time about an ecological entity being a person under international law.' 'Open' for input Cullinan and a working group of academics, lawyers and legal campaigners have set out to draft the Antarctica Rights Declaration, now open for feedback. It proposes rights for the region which would, in theory, enable the Antarctic to hold states or corporations accountable for actions that violate those rights. To represent Antarctica's interests in an international court, Cullinan suggests a kind of parliament may emerge — a representative body that appoints delegates to climate summits and biodiversity talks. Representation, he boldly adds, may even include participation in Antarctic Treaty consultative meetings, the annual governance gathering which this year opens in Milan on June 23. 'What's good for Antarctica,' presses the Shackleton Medal recipient, 'is good for humanity.' DM
CNN
17-06-2025
- Science
- CNN
Haunting images from photo prize show the ‘beauty and tragedy' of our planet
A melting glacier draped in the tattered remains of a thermal blanket, a ghostly abandoned mining town in Chile, and an ancient tree marked by floodwaters are among the winning images of the Earth Photo 2025 competition. The award — created in 2018 by Forestry England, the UK's Royal Geographic Society and visual arts consultancy Parker Harris — aims to showcase the issues affecting the climate and life on our planet. More than 1,500 images and videos were submitted to this year's competition by photographers and filmmakers from all over the world. The winners were announced last night at a ceremony at London's Royal Geographical Society, ahead of an exhibition of the imagery at the same location. Photographer Lorenzo Poli took the top prize for his series of photos titled 'Autophagy,' which document — in black and white — the Chuquicamata mine in Chile, one of the largest and deepest open-pit copper mines in the world, plunging nearly 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) into the Earth. Poli captures the vastness of the site, with moonlike landscapes of endless gray. One photo shows an abandoned miners' town and cemetery which is gradually being enveloped by the expanding mineral ore extraction. In a press release he said the photograph highlights the 'unrelenting expansion of extractive endeavors' and he hopes that it serves to highlight unsustainable mining practices. Through the competition, Earth Photo wants to open people's eyes to the stories behind the pictures and encourage conversation and action. 'These compelling images and storytelling bring us closer to landscapes, wildlife and communities, engaging us all with the conservation work underway and the new creative solutions needed ahead. Intensely thought-provoking photography and film like this deepens our understanding and can inspire all of us to action,' Hazel Stone, national curator of contemporary art at Forestry England and a member of the jury, told CNN. Other winning imagery included a photograph titled 'Waterline,' by Mateo Borrero, that depicts declining flood waters in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. In one photo, a man from the Ticuna indigenous people stands beside a gigantic ancient Ceiba tree, the waterline from previous rainy seasons visible just below his shoulders. 'This photograph, taken in May 2024, shows that the water level should be at its maximum; however, rainfall was scarce and, by the peak of the rainy season, non-existent,' explained Borrero in a press release. Drought is increasingly becoming a problem in the region, with some areas of the Amazon reportedly seeing river levels at their lowest in 120 years. This has disrupted ecosystems and affected millions of people who rely on the rivers for transport, food and income. Louise Fedotov-Clements, prize chair and director of Photoworks UK, said in a press release that the images bring us 'face to face' with the reality of the climate crisis. 'Within each edition of Earth Photo we see a compelling diversity of international projects using these powerful visual tools to share the beauty and tragedy of life on our planet. Through the lens, film and photography transforms climate change from an abstract threat into a visceral reality, capturing not only the damage, but the resilience of communities and ecosystems in the face of environmental crisis,' she said.
CNN
17-06-2025
- Science
- CNN
Haunting images from photo prize show the ‘beauty and tragedy' of our planet
A melting glacier draped in the tattered remains of a thermal blanket, a ghostly abandoned mining town in Chile, and an ancient tree marked by floodwaters are among the winning images of the Earth Photo 2025 competition. The award — created in 2018 by Forestry England, the UK's Royal Geographic Society and visual arts consultancy Parker Harris — aims to showcase the issues affecting the climate and life on our planet. More than 1,500 images and videos were submitted to this year's competition by photographers and filmmakers from all over the world. The winners were announced last night at a ceremony at London's Royal Geographical Society, ahead of an exhibition of the imagery at the same location. Photographer Lorenzo Poli took the top prize for his series of photos titled 'Autophagy,' which document — in black and white — the Chuquicamata mine in Chile, one of the largest and deepest open-pit copper mines in the world, plunging nearly 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) into the Earth. Poli captures the vastness of the site, with moonlike landscapes of endless gray. One photo shows an abandoned miners' town and cemetery which is gradually being enveloped by the expanding mineral ore extraction. In a press release he said the photograph highlights the 'unrelenting expansion of extractive endeavors' and he hopes that it serves to highlight unsustainable mining practices. Through the competition, Earth Photo wants to open people's eyes to the stories behind the pictures and encourage conversation and action. 'These compelling images and storytelling bring us closer to landscapes, wildlife and communities, engaging us all with the conservation work underway and the new creative solutions needed ahead. Intensely thought-provoking photography and film like this deepens our understanding and can inspire all of us to action,' Hazel Stone, national curator of contemporary art at Forestry England and a member of the jury, told CNN. Other winning imagery included a photograph titled 'Waterline,' by Mateo Borrero, that depicts declining flood waters in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. In one photo, a man from the Ticuna indigenous people stands beside a gigantic ancient Ceiba tree, the waterline from previous rainy seasons visible just below his shoulders. 'This photograph, taken in May 2024, shows that the water level should be at its maximum; however, rainfall was scarce and, by the peak of the rainy season, non-existent,' explained Borrero in a press release. Drought is increasingly becoming a problem in the region, with some areas of the Amazon reportedly seeing river levels at their lowest in 120 years. This has disrupted ecosystems and affected millions of people who rely on the rivers for transport, food and income. Louise Fedotov-Clements, prize chair and director of Photoworks UK, said in a press release that the images bring us 'face to face' with the reality of the climate crisis. 'Within each edition of Earth Photo we see a compelling diversity of international projects using these powerful visual tools to share the beauty and tragedy of life on our planet. Through the lens, film and photography transforms climate change from an abstract threat into a visceral reality, capturing not only the damage, but the resilience of communities and ecosystems in the face of environmental crisis,' she said.
The Hindu
15-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Hundred years ago: The Everest expedition
London, June 14: In an address at the Royal Geographical Society, Lord Ronaldshay referring to the Everest expedition, paid a very high tribute to the leadership of Bruce and Norton and also to the brilliance of the latter's despatches. He reiterated that the Everest climbers were not prepared to admit their defeat. He said the prospect of putting the matter to the final test depended on the willingness of the Tibetan Government to permit another expedition rather than on the readiness and ability of the Committee to organise and despatch it.
