Entry Title: " Gulf Oil Spill"
Name: Daniel Beltra, United States
Category: Professional, Deeper Perspective


Story: This group of photographs shows scenes of the Gulf of Mexico in the spring and summer of 2010, when at least four million barrels of crude spilled from the BP-Deepwarter Horizon wellhead. Despite the cleanup efforts, the flow of oil spread across an area of 68,000 square miles of water surface at its peak and impacted an untold number of marine life, wildlife and the livelihoods of regional residents for years to come. Because of the distance from shore and government restrictions which limited flights to no lower an altitude than 3,000 feet, access to views of the largest oil spill was extremely limited. BP tried to minimize the amount of oil on the surface, applying millions of gallons of toxic dispersants such as Corexit. As the oil made landfall, its immediate affects on wildlife like birds and fish were easier to grasp, but the true scale of the spill became distorted. With the scarcity of fossil fuel sources continuing to increase, the potential for another man-made disaster similar to the Gulf Oil Spill - and scenes such as these - will remain. It is important for people to recognize and understand the collateral costs that our energy-intensive lifestyle can produce. Hopefully these images help to do this.

Born in Madrid, Spain, Daniel Beltrá is a conservation photographer based in Seattle, Washington. Daniel’s artistic passion for what he loves is conveyed instantly in images of our environment that are evocatively poignant. He brings sensibility and craft to the fields of nature and the environment, creating images that he hopes will spur greater respect and conservation of those subjects. The most striking large-scale photographs by Daniel Beltrá are images shot from the air, as this perspective gives the viewer a wider context to the beauty and destruction he witnesses and reveals a sense of scale and details normally invisible to the naked eye. In two months of photographing the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill for Greenpeace, Beltrá produced many of the most visually arresting images to come from this man-made environmental disaster. A selection of twenty of these images were a featured part of the exhibit "SPILL: A Crude Response," which premiered at the 212 Gallery in Aspen, Colorado. “SPILL” is currently on exhibit at the Seattle Aquarium, and will continue to tour nationally and internationally through 2012. Over the past two decades, Beltrá's passion for his work has taken him to all seven continents, including several expeditions to the Brazilian Amazon, the Arctic, the Southern Oceans and the Patagonian ice fields, where he has photographed some of the last remaining pristine places on the planet. Daniel Beltrá was awarded the prestigious Prince's Rainforest Project given via the Sony World Photography Awards in April 2009. The award, granted by Prince Charles in a private audience, sent Beltrá for three months to the Congo, Amazon and Indonesian rainforests to create photos for a book, website and exhibitions about the perilous fate that the world's rainforests face. In 2011, Daniel has received many accolades for his work on the Deepwater Horizon Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He was awarded the Special Prize by the Jury for 7th Days Japan International Photojournalism Awards, along with an Award of Excellence for Pictures of the Year International. He was recently awarded the Gold, Bronze Prize, and Award of Excellence for the China International Press Photo Contest. In 2010, the International Photography Awards and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year recognized Beltrá's work in the Yucatan and Indonesia, respectively. In 2008, Beltrá was awarded the inaugural "Global Vision Award" from the Pictures of the Year International contest for work in the Ross Sea and the Amazon. For the last 20 years, Daniel's work has been published by the most prominent international publications such as The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Stern, Geo, National Geographic, Financial Times, The New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais, Asahi Shimbun, amongst many others. Daniel Beltrá is also a fellow of the prestigious International League of Conservation Photographers. http://www.danielbeltra.com/