I moved back home to rural North Yorkshire in 2016, where I met my partner, a farmer. When you spend a lot of time on a farm, you end up helping out. I’m not from a farming background so I joined a Facebook group for women in farming to feel a bit more supported. You can ask about practical things – no question is a stupid one.

I was photographing working-class women in agriculture when I started a residency with the Maltings in Berwick for my series Daughters of the Soil. I put out a call in that Facebook group asking if any women there would be up for being involved. Only five responded but there was a snowball effect: each one directed me to someone else.

After the residency, I continued the series, and that’s when I got talking to Annie Stones. She was posting a lot in the group and always helping other women. She is the chairwoman of the Young Farmers Club in Reeth. I realised she lived about 15 minutes away from me – I’d actually played rugby with her sister.

It was July 2022 when I went to meet her at her family’s farm, Nun Cote Nook in Marrick, which sits in the Yorkshire Dales national park. I had a cup of tea with her and her mum and dad. Her boyfriend was there, he’s a farmer too. We were just gossiping, then I got talking to Annie one-on-one. Her passion for what she does really came out: she has a full-time job but she spends all her spare time on the farm. A lot of working-class women in agriculture have another job to pay the rent and bills.

It’s a beef and sheep farm but the sheep are Annie’s main passion. She had recently won an award at the Great Yorkshire Show with the sheep in this photo: a north country cheviot. We were talking about the show and how excited Annie was to win that award, and I was taking photos as we were chatting using a Mamiya 7: a medium format camera that enables you to be quite responsive.

This photo happened right at the end of our day together. While I was photographing Annie, her dad and boyfriend were standing behind me, and it was clear how much pride they felt for her from the way they spoke. They see her as a vital part of both her family’s and her partner’s farms, and as an equal partner. As they were talking, that look of determination came out on Annie’s face – that’s when I made the image.

We were lucky with the weather: it was a bright but cold day in July. Those are the Swaledale Hills in the background. With that upland hill-farming landscape, you really have to work with the biodiversity of the land, so we were talking about that, and soil health, and how they do rotational grazing. The instrument Annie is holding is what she uses to dress the sheep at the shows – it helps to tidy them up. The stand is used to prepare for shows, too. It keeps the sheep in one place.

Collaborating with Annie also led me to my latest project, Middle of Somewhere, which explores rural gentrification. Buying or renting a home in the Yorkshire Dales is expensive, and since this photo was taken, Annie and her partner have had to move outside of the national park.

Annie is someone who demonstrates the importance of support networks for women in industries that are largely male-focused, and for me, she really stands out. This photo is reflective of my style of image-making in general: it’s gentle and quiet. My aim is to get people to ask questions, whether about gender in agriculture, rural life or working-class people. I hope this photo can change the stereotypes around who a farmer can be. This is a young woman who cares about the land, the place and the people.

Joanne Coates’ Middle of Somewhere is at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, until 17 November

Joanne Coates’ CV

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Born: North Yorkshire
Trained: “A foundation year in fine art, then a BA at London College of Communication at the University of the Arts London”
Influences: “The film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky and the writers Benjamin Myers, Rebecca Smith, Nan Shepherd and John Clare”
High point: “My current show at the Baltic. To have people believe in the work I care about is really special”
Low point: “A few years after university, I lost my bank account because of my student overdraft. At that point, I thought there was no future for me as an artist and photographer”
Top tip: “Be yourself and make what you’re passionate about. Also, maybe piss them off with perseverance”

Director, producer, cinematographer, and a pioneer in the art of time-lapse photography.

Inspired by his parents, who were Holocaust survivors, Brooklyn, New York-born Louie Schwartzberg shifted from a political science major in college in the late 1960s to learn about photography and, eventually, produce the type of storytelling that embraces love, hope, joy and the wonder and beauty of nature.

“At the time, there was a revolution at my doorstep and I learned how to use the camera because I wanted to document the police protests,” noted Louie Schwartzberg, whose library of filmmaking for television, film and streaming includes the 3D IMAX film, Mysteries of the Unseen World with National Geographic, narrated by Forest Whitaker; the documentary Wings of Life for Disneynature, narrated by Meryl Streep; and the documentary Fantastic Fungi, now on Netflix, which delves into the magical world of fungi and their power to heal, sustain and contribute to the regeneration of life on Earth.

To celebrate its five-year milestone, Fantastic Fungi was released in theaters throughout the country to offer viewers the opportunity to experience the film in a digitally remastered format.

“When I started doing these photo essays about those turbulent times for my political science class, I discovered my voice and I fell in love with photography,” said Schwartzberg. “My parents, who never lost faith despite what they went through, are my inspiration to tell the stories about people who overcome adversity and still live positive lives.”

Through his photography and filmmaking, Schwartzberg showcases the stories that celebrate life and reveal the mysteries and wisdom of nature, people and places. And the accolades, to-date, are significant.

Schwartzberg is the first filmmaker inducted into the Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Foundation’s Invention Ambassadors Program. He received the Debra Simon award for Leadership in Mental Wellness from the Global Wellness Summit. His series of Gratitude Revealed shorts, which launched on Oprah.com, feature his intimate conversations themed to why gratitude is a pathway back from the disconnection in our lives. And, in 2020, he received the Grand Visionary Award from the American Visionary Art Museum.

More recently, Schwartzberg launched The Louie Channel in 2023, a free streaming platform featuring his filmmaking and the work of other artists, all dedicated to inspiring wonder, awe, gratitude and hope. Since its debut, The Louie Channel already boasts approximately 93,000 subscribers and continues to grow.

Schwartzberg is also the creator of the Soarin’ Around the World flight simulator attraction at Disney Theme Parks worldwide, which takes guests on a scenic aerial tour of the globe. He co-created a Fantastic Fungi cookbook with Eugenia Bone, the main character in the film. His exclusive content was featured in a 360-degree display at the Sphere arena in Las Vegas to inaugurate Earth Day 2024 in April. And he has been helping researchers study the benefits of psilocybin (magic mushrooms) via the concept of “visual healing” through Fantastic Fungi and other nature-themed videos.

Additionally, Schwartzberg is active in the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) community, and has delivered speeches at NASA, Global Spa and Wellness Summit, The Nantucket Project and Bioneers.

From the Beginning

“In my early childhood in Brooklyn, we never went traveling because, for my parents, food on the table and a roof over your head was heaven on earth and they were just grateful for life,” recalled Schwartzberg. “But I remember the fascination of watching leaves and popsicle sticks go down the gutter when the water was running. And we went up to the Catskills once, where I could smell grass and remember how invigorating that was.”

“When we moved to Los Angeles, I was in awe looking at the palm trees, and the blue sky,” he noted. “I simply found my love of nature and. After college, I ended up in a small California town called Mendocino, where I stayed for three years. There were a bunch of us from UCLA and NYU, and we all had PhDs and masters and all kinds of degrees. But we did not know how to live off the land. We had no idea how to dig a garden, how to dig a well, or how to cut a road, and it was a new education for all of us.”

In Mendocino, Schwartzberg honed his skills as a photographer and a filmmaker, where he modified old cameras that you could not look through to shoot using time-lapse photography.

“I wanted to shoot the clouds. I wanted to shoot shafts of light and forest and flowers and all kinds of magic that shifts your perception when you alter time and scale,” said Schwartzberg. “A friend who built electric cars made a battery powered motor that ran on flashlight batteries, and we modified these old bodies with still camera lenses so I could shoot 35 millimeter outside.”

Through this journey of time and scale, Schwartzberg makes what appears to be invisible visible.

“My goal is to have cinematography be an art form and not just something you use for television show or for a commercial or a movie,” he noted. “When I was shooting this incredible time lapse of nature, a couple people in Hollywood found out that I was doing it. There was a film going on called The Secret Life of Plants, which Stevie Wonder did the score for, and they wanted to use my footage. And I started to license the imagery that I owned, and the studios began to use my imagery for main title opens and commercials”

“Eventually, I amassed a large contemporary stock company, which Getty images acquired in 1996,” he said.

Schwartzberg is credited for the main title design in TV series like comedy The Famous Teddy Z and mystery drama Snoops; and in later years as a cinematographer for films like Any Given Sunday, Erin Brockovich, and Men in Black II.

“Ultimately, I started my own production company with the business model and the idea that there was a market for beauty and for something that would captivate your attention without being exploitive or violent,” he said. “I think there is an alternative to conflict and fear, and it is called beauty and love.”

Schwartzberg also added music videos to his list of duties, such as Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. “They needed my cool, trippy imagery of time lapse clouds and all kinds of nature,” he noted. “And I would come to the production company, get on the phone, talk to ad agencies, talk to the networks, and I would hustle.”

“When digital came into play in the mid-1990s, we were the first to digitize imagery, have it partnered with companies like Sprint, IBM, and Silicon Graphics. And we created a virtual network where ad agencies and production companies could collaborate online.”

“Through it all, I am not just shooting something pretty. I am showing you a story of, like, how does that thing survive? How do they enable each other, which is part of survival? Nothing lives alone in nature, so you have to look at symbiotic relationships.”

Looking Ahead

“Right now, I am actively building content for The Louie Channel. But a new vertical for my imagery is healthcare, which is aiding patients during oncology and during dialysis to help them heal faster. The fear in your mind can trigger disease and if you can heal the mind, then maybe that is a way to heal the body.”

For Schwartzberg, satisfaction results from creating films and images that can have a positive effect on the future of the planet. “I hope my films inspire and open people’s hearts,” he noted. ” Beauty is nature’s tool for survival, and technology is catching up to my vision.”

“After all these years, I feel like I am just getting started,” he said.

This perfect formation of black skimmer birds, a stoic Alpine ibex, a surfing penguin and gorgeous images of landscapes and woodlands are among the winning photos of this year’s GDT Nature Photographer of the Year.

The winners were selected from among more than 8,000 entries across seven categories that included Birds, Mammals, Other Animals, Plants & Fungi, Landscapes and Nature’s Studio.

The German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) organizing the photo contest is a non-profit founded in 1971 that “demands and supports nature photography that embraces authenticity, true conservation and artistic quality.”

The GDT Nature Photographer of the Year contest is open to members of the society, while the GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year is open to all photographers based in Europe.

Photographer Dieter Damschen won the Special Category All things flow – Germany’s river landscapes with his photograph ‘Winter flood in a riparian forest’ for which he also secured overall victory.

See all the winning photos in each category here.

Overall Winner

The inundated trees in the floodplain hardwood forest of the Mittel Elbe during a winter flood.

“Winter is my favorite time of year and one of my favoured motifs is the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Elbe River Landscape,” Dieter explains. “Although I claim to know this location very well and sometimes get the feeling that I have seen and photographed everything here many times, I am regularly surprised by how different a supposedly familiar place can appear.”

After several years with extremely low water levels, a long-awaited winter flood inundated the old oak trees in January, 2024. The resulting contrasting lines emphasize the time-worn structures of the mighty trees, creating the special graphic effect of this fleeting moment.

Birds

Gentoos are the fastest swimmers among penguins and agile enough to surf breaking waves.

Whooper swans, one on a landing trajectory, during a snowstorm on a frozen lake in Hokkaido, Japan.

A parent prepares a near-final visit to the nest to feed these hungry kestrels ready to fledge.

Mammals

Uganda Humpback whales spend the summer months in their Antarctic feeding grounds hunting energy-rich krill to build up sufficient blubber reserves for the long migration to their winter breeding grounds in the tropics. Using a technique known as bubble netting, several whales encircle a swarm of krill, crowding the swarm further by releasing a curtain of air bubbles, and then close in to feed effortlessly.

Alpine ibex are perfectly adapted to the inhospitable conditions at high elevations and can survive severe winter storms.

The Great Migration in the Serengeti-Mara-ecosystem is one of the largest animal migrations on the planet. These wildebeest are crossing the Mara River, their solid mass during a pause in their tidal movement conveys a sense of oppressive confinement.

The red deer stag captured in motion here was fast on the train of a potential mate.

“But cheetahs don’t kill zebras,” Monika Morlak’s astounded guide proclaimed in Madikwe, South Africa. But this cheetah with three adolescents in tow managed to do just that.

A thread-winged antlion resting at night in a Namibian camp.

The diamondback rattlesnake extends its tongue to detect odors. Kai Kolodziej was seeking — succesfully, as it turns out — to make that behavior visible.

The small river Groote Aa flows past the outskirts of Odermatt’s village in the Netherlands. It offers a perfect summer habitat for arrowhead plants.

A drooping Pasque flower opens on a frosty morning.

A Bonnet sprouting pin mold, which acts as a parasite on this particular kind of fungi.

Felix Wesch adores these woods, and found a festival of color during a rare mornings in autumn with both fog and sunshine.

This photograph was taken in Marble Castle, Saltfjellet-Svartisen National Park, Norway. The scene was lit with flashes from several perspectives.

More painting than photo, a tree is shaped by the wind in the grey dunes of the German barrier island Baltrum.

In the warm glow of the morning sun in the Wadden Sea, a pair of wagtails cavorts through the air.

In ICM photography — intentional camera movement — a camera is moved during the exposure for a creative or artistic effect. Here, a dew-covered spider web is backlit by morning light.

Sand-bubbler crabs create a striking formation on a beach in Malaysia as they sift through sand searching for food. Discarded grains are rolled into pellets to ensure the same sand isn’t sifted twice.