Climate anxiety is very real, but these good news stories from 2024 prove there is hope for our planet.

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Eco-anxiety, climate doom, environmental existential dread – as green journalists, we see these terms used a lot – and often feel them ourselves.

While there’s a lot to be worried about when it comes to the climate and nature crises, we must not lose hope – because hopelessness breeds apathy.

The media has an important role to play in combatting climate doom. It’s our job to be truthful and accurate in our reporting, not trying to downplay or greenwash the situation. But it’s also our job to show that there is hope.

In 2023, as part of our ongoing effort to tackle eco-anxiety (both that of our readers and our own), we kept track of all the positive environmental news throughout the year. We racked up over 200 stories of eco-innovation, green breakthroughs and climate wins – more than double the number in 2022 and a sure sign of momentum.

In 2024, we’re confident the good news will keep on coming, as renewable power soars, vulnerable ecosystems gain rights, and climate protocols start to pay dividends.

This article will be regularly updated with the latest good news. It may be something small and local, something silly that made us smile, or something enormous and potentially world-changing.

If you come across a great, positive story that we haven’t covered here – please reach out to us on Instagram or X to share your ideas.

Positive environmental stories from February 2024

European ‘Godfathers of wind’ jointly win the ‘Nobel prize’ of engineering

The winners of the “Nobel prize of engineering” have been announced – and they are two European pioneers of wind energy.

Danish Henrik Stiesdal and British Andrew Garrad – often referred to as the ‘Godfathers of wind’ – share this year’s Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, as a recognition of their critical contributions to the development of wind power.

New dinosaur-like reptile discovered in Scotland after bones found on field trip

A new dinosaur-like species has been uncovered in Scotland, giving palaeontologists a precious insight into animal life in the Middle Jurassic.

Researchers from the UK’s Natural History Museum first noticed a few bones sticking out of a boulder during a field trip to the Isle of Skye in 2006. That fossil has now been revealed as a new species of pterosaur, named ‘Ceoptera evansae’.

Let sleeping bears lie: Photo of snoozing polar bear wins prestigious wildlife photography award

A photo of a young polar bear napping on an iceberg has been handed the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award.

Nima Sarikhani’s striking Ice Bed, captured off Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, is a poignant visual reminder of how fast the ice caps are melting due to rising temperatures.

The winner said that while climate change is the “biggest challenge we face”, he hopes the photo inspires hope.

This disused mine in Finland is being turned into a gravity battery to store renewable energy

One of Europe’s deepest mines is being transformed into an underground energy store. It will use gravity to retain excess power for when it is needed.

The remote Finnish community of Pyhäjärvi is 450 kilometres north of Helsinki. Its more than 1,400-metre-deep zinc and copper Pyhäsalmi mine was decommissioned but is now being given a new lease of life by Scotland-based company Gravitricity.

Pedal power: This climate change play in Lithuania is activated using exercise bikes

Next time you hit the gym or jump on your exercise bike, take inspiration from the fact you could be powering a work of art.

While chances are you’re the only one feeling the fitness benefits, a new tech and theatre partnership is proving that anything is possible.

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Two specially created exercise bikes powered an entire play in the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre last weekend.

Ireland on track for €225m climate finance target – what can other European countries learn?

Ireland is set to meet its pledge of providing €225 million in climate finance per year to poorer nations by 2025.

Tánaiste (deputy prime minister of the Republic) Micheál Martin shared the positive news with the publication of Ireland’s climate and environmental finance report for 2022.

Crabs turned this marshland into ‘Swiss cheese’ – until sea otters arrived to keep them in check

California’s collapsing marshlands have found an unlikely saviour in hungry sea otters.

The return of otters and their voracious appetites could halt one of the biggest causes of erosion, a new study shows.

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Sea otters eat constantly and one of their favourite snacks is the striped shore crab. These crabs dig burrows and also nibble away roots of the marsh grass pickleweed that holds dirt in place.

Positive environmental stories from January 2024

How green is Switzerland? From people power to water batteries, here’s how the Davos host levels up

Climate change was one of the issues at the top of the list for discussion during the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. 

From climate referendums to renewable energy, we took a look at the green credentials of the country where the global get-together was held.

‘Enormous potential’: Inside Scotland’s green strategy to power the nation solely with renewables

Renewable power sources generated enough energy to meet 100 per cent of Scotland’s electricity demand in 2022, recently released government data shows.

Green energy such as wind and hydro generated the equivalent of 113 per cent of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption.

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This was 26 per cent more than in 2021.

Denmark enlists 10 more in push for ‘ambitious’ climate target

Heavyweights Germany, France and Spain are among 10 member states that have joined Denmark in calling for a 2040 emissions reduction target. This is in line with the advice of EU scientists who say net greenhouse gas output must be slashed to no more than a tenth of 1990 levels.

Denmark is the only country so far to have explicitly endorsed a 90 per cent net reduction target, which equates to a seven-fold reduction from current levels over the next sixteen years. 

Inside the Amazon’s tallest treehouse, where Peruvians are taught to combat deforestation with tech

From a classroom in the Amazon’s tallest treehouse, young Peruvians are learning how to defend their rainforest home.

Nestled in the crown of a strangler fig tree, the rangers have a bird’s eye view over the canopy.

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It’s an education in itself, says Juan Julio (JJ) Durand, vice president of Junglekeepers – a nonprofit which conserves threatened habitat in the Madre de Dios (Mother of God) region of Peru’s Amazon.

First successful embryo transfer using IVF in rhinos could save species from extinction

Scientists hope that the first pregnancy of a rhinoceros after an embryo transfer could pave the way to save the nearly extinct northern white rhino subspecies.

The method was tested in another rhino subspecies, with researchers successfully creating a southern white rhino embryo in a lab.

Scientists and veterinarians transferred two southern white rhino embryos into a surrogate mother at a conservancy in Kenya and confirmed a pregnancy of 70 days.

New food labels to identify Belgian producers that ‘go the extra mile’ with animal welfare

An area of Belgium will soon have new animal-friendly labels on food products.

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In Flanders, a Dutch-speaking area in the country’s north, packaging will come with information about animal production standards.

The new label, called Beter voor Dieren (Better for Animals), will identify products whose companies have followed ethical procedures when raising animals used for human consumption.

Plastic bag bans work: New study finds they save 6 billion bags a year in some US states

Single-use plastic bag bans have successfully reduced plastic bag use and associated litter and pollution, a new study has found.

Bans in five US states and cities with a combined population of around 12 million people have cut single-use plastic bag consumption by about 6 billion bags per year, according to the research.

Adopting a ban that’s similar to the policies in these places could eliminate roughly 300 single-use plastic bags per person per year, according to the report.

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High Seas Treaty: Palau and Chile first countries to ratify deal to protect international waters

Chile and Palau have become the first two countries to ratify a landmark UN treaty for the protection of the high seas.

The UN’s High Seas Treaty was adopted last year after almost 20 years of negotiations. More than 80 countries have so far signed it but need to ratify it to be bound by it.

The treaty would become the world’s first international law to mandate the conservation and management of marine life in areas beyond countries’ national jurisdictions. 

‘Be an actionist’: An environmental trailblazer’s inspiring message to climate activists from Davos

From being a kid trapped in a storm to walking the halls of power, 31-year-old David Saddington’s life has been shaped by the course of climate change and climate action in the UK.

“It was already clear in 2005 that this issue of ‘climate change’ was going to affect my life and generations to come,” he tells Euronews Green from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. “So I took it upon myself to make a noise in my school.”

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But his fledgling climate activism took an unusual turn when he was invited to Downing Street at 14, to discuss the issue with then Prime Minister Tony Blair. He asked the PM to put climate change on the national curriculum – a measure adopted in 2007.

European Green Capital 2024: What does Valencia have planned for its year in the limelight?

The greenest city in Europe has officially upped sticks from the Baltic shores of Estonia to the Spanish Mediterranean.

Valencia took over as European Green Capital from Tallinn in a ceremony last week, kickstarting more than 400 sustainable events in 2024.

“Valencia has earned the Green Capital title because of its ambitious sustainability strategy, and it has learned from lessons in the past,” says EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius.

‘Unique biodiversity’: Scientists discover four new species of octopus off the coast of Costa Rica

Scientists have discovered at least four new octopus species in a roughly 260-kilometre square area off the coast of Costa Rica.

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“Through hard work, our team discovered new hydrothermal springs offshore [of] Costa Rica and confirmed that they host nurseries of deep-sea octopus and unique biodiversity,” says Dr Beth Orcutt from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences who co-led the expeditions on the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Falkor (too).

Poland’s new government commits to join EU ‘fight’ against climate change

The return to power of Polish prime minister Donald Tusk could see one of Europe’s least enthusiastic supporters of climate action in recent years throw its weight behind a radical new 2040 emissions reduction target.

Poland’s new government has promised a new coal phase-out date as it signalled support for a 90 per cent reduction in net greenhouse gas output across the EU by 2040.

Chicken bones ground into paste could help cut food waste and emissions

Food scientists have found a way to make chicken nuggets and fish cakes out of otherwise discarded bones and hard tissues.

The idea is to reduce food waste and carbon emissions from animal agriculture, by getting more mileage out of the meat, thereby requiring fewer animals to be farmed for the same output.

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‘Spectacular’ growth in renewables in 2023 keeps COP28 pledge within reach, says IEA

Global renewable energy capacity grew by the fastest pace in the last 20 years in 2023, which could put the world within reach of meeting a key climate target by the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The Paris-based agency said rapid growth of solar in China was the main driver as the world added nearly 510 gigawatts – enough to power nearly 51 million homes for a year – with Europe, the United States and Brazil also seeing record growth.

Indoor solar power: These cells can harvest energy from any light source for battery-free devices

Solar cells that work in low light could help your devices go battery-free.

California-based company Ambient Photonics has been working on indoor solar cells since 2019, improving the performance and price of this emerging technology.

The cells can be ‘printed’ in almost any size and shape for use on everyday devices such as remote controls and wireless keyboards, potentially removing the need for batteries and decreasing the size and weight of electronics.

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‘Historic win for animals’: South Korea bans sale and production of dog meat

South Korea’s parliament has passed a landmark ban on the production and sale of dog meat.

Although only a small minority of people still consume dog meat in South Korea, the ancient practise has been the subject of sharp criticism from foreign media and animal rights advocates. In recent years, the country’s younger generations have joined calls to ban it.

On Tuesday 9 January, parliament heeded their calls. 

Cigarette recycling: Slovakia is transforming filters into asphalt for roads

Bratislava is pioneering a new way to recycle cigarette butts.

The Slovakian capital’s municipal waste management company announced a new push to collect and reuse discarded cigarettes in 2024.

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During the city’s Christmas markets, the group trialled special containers designed to collect both standard cigarette filters and those found in modern heated tobacco devices like vapes.

The city plans to use the discarded material to create asphalt for roads.

Heat pumps will be allowed on historic buildings under new UK rules

The UK government has announced it will relax planning rules on protected buildings in England to allow the installation of heat pumps and solar panels.

The measures are part of wider efforts to reach net zero targets.

France implements compulsory composting. Here’s how it will help slash emissions

As of 1 January 2024, organic waste recycling is mandatory in France under new ‘compost obligatoire’ rules.

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With support from the government’s Green Fund, municipalities must provide residents with ways to sort bio-waste, which includes food scraps, vegetable peels, expired food and garden waste.

Food waste is responsible for about 16 per cent of the total emissions from the EU food system, according to the European Commission.

Our favourite positive environmental story from 2023

The richest country in Europe is celebrating three years of free public transport

If you’ve been living in the tiny EU state of Luxembourg you will already have had access to free public transport for the last three years.

Unsurprisingly on the anniversary of this novel and seemingly very expensive public initiative, almost everyone who uses trams, buses and trains in the tiny EU state says they’re happy with it.

“Since it’s free, it’s easier to make a decision quickly, to choose between public transport or a private car. This means that it is very positive for the environment and practical,” one man said whilst using the tram in Luxembourg City.

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For more good news on the environment from last year, check out all of Euronews Green’s positive environmental stories from 2023.

Iranian photographer Zahra Yazdani presents a new body of work in her exhibition Scripted Selves: Sutures of Signs and Symbols, curated by Manan Shah at Latitude 28 Gallery, New Delhi. Through the measured exposure of limbs, torsos, and morphing bodies, she treats the photograph through the overarching narrative of how light travels and is captured through an analogue camera. Yazdani’s images of performing bodies arrive at gestures and aesthetic explorations that hint at the erotic, the abject, and the uncomfortable.

Yazdani’s encounters stage a carefully constructed language of illumination, shadows, and darkness. In conversation with STIR, the artist discusses her experimentation with a large format camera, referring to the frame as “a kind of canvas”, as she acquaints herself with the format for the first time. Using double exposure as an experimental method to construct an image, Yazdani manipulates analogue techniques in a traditional darkroom setup. Yazdani says, “I was curious about the old concept of the camera, as raw as it is. In its most basic form, cameras have one hole, through which rays of light enter, and slowly images are created […] It wasn’t just about the technique but about the darkroom. It was a process of cut-and-paste while I was printing them in the dark room. The light had to be cut in certain parts, and where there is a double exposure, there can be tonal variation, so you can choose to cut the light.”

The manipulation of figures through this technique creates shapes, visions, and motions, producing chimeric beings, often without faces. The figures take centre stage, naked and emoting exaggerated imagery concerning their forms, seemingly creating an encounter with the erotic through the skin as a surface, extending to the rawness of flesh and the mutative capacity of the human body. In her photo The Surgery Room, Yazdani constructs an operating room with surgical tools and a table, assembling the evidence of an incision. The artist refers to the introduction of the “surgical gaze” that she was “excavating” through this series, revealing a conjured atmosphere of vulnerability. Portraits of surgical tools in the exhibition seem to capture the macabre, with a suggestion of the grotesque through the picturing of invasive instruments. They also seem to gesture towards the skin as an expanse, a barrier between air and blood. In two of the photographs in The Surgery Room chapter, Yazdani, too, is pictured with her camera, seen as a reflection in the mirror, alongside the performer who sensually reclines on the operating table. The artist-photographer is, thus identified and the wall between the staged subjects and the literal reality of the medium breaks down, subverting traditional biases and perceptions of experiencing and engaging with photography.

The surgery room can be read as an allegory for the gaze of the photographer as she pierces, cuts, stitches, and disembowels. In conversation with STIR, Yazdani talks about the process of staging the photographs and the twisted, temporal configurations she directs, “The figures are as if there is one body, but it is transformed and alienated from the regular body that we see.” We see these faceless, limbed figures on fabric prints hanging from the ceiling in the exhibition, almost like a trapeze artist, where the body is in a state of intensified contortion and performance. The bodies can be seen as grotesque in their twisted, headless, naked, forms, sinewy and precariously balanced.

The series The Black Room is a reference to the camera itself, as Yazdani tells STIR. She describes the camera as a sealed black compartment, where narrow rays of light enter into a space of gestation. In The Black Room, Yazdani photographs performers in an intimate darkened space, with a controlled use of artificial light to create the scene. The result is isolating and somewhat claustrophobic as the bodies appear torn, writhing and contorting. The artist tells STIR, “What fascinates me about the body is that it has a language by itself, you can feel it through the act of the body, the gestures and body language of people. For me, the body has a very expressive language within it.”

In The Pink Elephant chapter, the photographs appear softer, with bodies attuned to domestic space, displaying contortions and floating in space as object-like forms. Playing with the body as material and manifestation of the psyche, Yazdani explores the figurative form as a site of excavation, evoking the feral and the tamed. Many of the bodies that the artist presents are in a state of falling. Limbs are intertwined, straining, and sideways, bodies lumpy and pulled down by gravity.

23 photos have made the cut in our final shortlist for the January ‘Reflections’ edition of our free monthly photo comp.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=australianphotographymag&set=a.928635408818790

To vote in the People’s Choice award, just like your favourite images in the album above.

The image with the most likes by Monday 19 February at 11am AEDT will win the People’s Choice prize, a 12-month digital subscription to Australian Photography or Capture mag.

Our judge’s choice this month will take home a 12 month print subscription to AP mag.

If you’d like to enter our Feb issue of the comp, the theme is ‘Windows’ and you can do so here. 

Surrender, a new, dramatic, fiction film written and directed by Jess Dang, and starring Andrea Bang from the hit CBC series Kim’s Convenience and Keiko Agena from Gilmore Girls, has just begun principal photography in Los Angeles. Produced by Long Lunch Break, the film was selected for production as one of 10 fiction films by Film Independent’s Fast Track Fellowship Program.  

Principal photography on Surrender, which marks Dang’s directorial debut, will continue through the month of February in Los Angeles. Dang plans to have the new project hit the film festival circuit during 2025. Picture producers are Jessica Olthof and Darren Haruo Rae, and Dang under her Long Lunch Break company banner. Andrea Bang will serve as an Executive Producer.

Film Independent has partnered with the filmmakers of Surrender as the project’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor. The Surrender team plans to raise additional funds for the post-production phase. For information on how to make a tax-deductible donation to Surrender, please CLICK HERE

Surrender Storyline
Triggered and wanting to escape her past trauma, Naomi (Andrea Bang,) a young, Asian American female, falls into the world of blackjack to regain a sense of control, but finds herself addicted to the game. By day, Naomi is successful at her job. By night, she is a high-limit blackjack player. Her compulsive gambling puts her in a secret cycle of shame as she suppresses her internal feelings to appear externally sound, impacting her mental health.  

History of Surrender
In 2021, Surrender, the short film, was produced. The film starred Andrea Bang from Kim’s Convenience, and Keiko Agena from Gilmore Girls.

In 2022, Surrender, the short film, premiered at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, before traveling globally – from local to international film festivals. The short film received a licensing deal with NBC Universal via Comcast, following its presentation at the Portland Film Festival. Simultaneously, the feature film version of Surrender then participated as one of ten films chosen for production by Film Independent’s highly-selective Fast Track Fellowship Program. The film was also selected by Owning It, a program of the Gotham Film & Media Institute, dedicated to supporting, connecting, and empowering women and non-binary creators and entrepreneurs who break down boundaries in the media and entertainment industry.

During the course of 2022, the original Surrender short film earned critical acclaim, including being named the Winner of that year’s Stockholm City Film Festival. Surrender was also recognized in 2022 as an “Official Selection” by many other events, including the Los Angeles Asian Pacific, Portland, Catalina, Vancouver Asian, Philadelphia Asian American, Seattle Asian American, Pittsburgh Shorts, and Independent Filmmakers Showcase Film Festivals.

About The Cast
Andrea Bang: Andrea Bang was born and raised in Burnaby, B.C. She is best known for playing Janet on CBC’s Kim’s Convenience, which has earned her multiple Canadian Screen Award nominations for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy. Her other television credits include recurring guest stars in Running with Violet, and ABC’s A Million Little Things.

In film, Andrea starred as Grace in Stay The Night, which premiered at SXSW in 2022. She had a supporting lead role opposite Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones in the Legendary thriller, Fresh, and held a role in Luce, opposite Naomi Watts and Octavia Spencer — both of those films were premiered at Sundance. Next, Andrea stars as Waverly in the Wattpad adaptation of Float for Lionsgate.

Aside from acting, Andrea continues to write, make videos, and watch way too much TV. She is represented by The Characters Talent Agency, and Authentic Talent and Literary Management.

Keiko Agena: Keiko Agena is best known for her series regular roles on the shows Prodigal Son where she played Dr. Edrisa Tanaka, and Gilmore Girls, where she played Lane Kim for seven years, later reprising the role in Netflix’s Gilmore Girls: Seasons. As an improviser, she has performed at UCB Sunset/NY and IO WEST. In between, Agena has been a series regular on Hulu’s The First, and held recurring roles on Better Call Saul, Dirty John, and 13 Reasons Why.

About The Filmmaker Jess Dang 
Jess Dang is a Chinese-American writer and director based in Los Angeles. She values collaboration and hopes to continue telling stories that can work as visual conversations. Dang holds an MFA in Film & Television Production from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and a BFA in Communication Design from Parsons School of Design.

Dang’s work has screened at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, DOC NYC at the IFC Center, an event produced by The New York Times, and on Gaiam TV, among others. She has also created content for brands such as Intel, Audible, Google, Snapchat, Target, MTV, Gold’s Gym, I Love NY, the University of Pittsburgh, and The Islands of The Bahamas. Her work continues to reach multiple audiences due to her use of color and forms.

Dang is committed to amplifying Asian voices and centering underrepresented communities in her work – exploring narrative themes of social justice, moral and humanitarian progress, and mental health.

Dang is a Film Independent Fellow and has participated in Owning It, a program of the Gotham Film & Media Institute which supports women, non-binary creators, and entrepreneurs who break down boundaries in the entertainment industry. 

Surrender marks Dang’s directorial debut feature film.

The Contexts & Communities art exhibition, open at SP/N from Jan. 26 to March 2, includes a large archive of photographs that create a nostalgic feeling in viewers by centering themes of community and familial bonds.

The exhibition features photographs from the Comer Collection, which was created by retired engineer Jerry Comer. Curator and PhD student Rebecca Cai picked the exhibition’s current theme — Contexts & Communities — and selected all relevant photographs from the collection. Cai included text descriptions next to each piece of artwork to tell its story and show its place in the exhibition.

Comer gave his collection to UTD in 2010, giving an opportunity each year for PhD students to curate an exhibition by selecting a subset of its photos based on a central theme. As a serious amateur photographer who has won eight Best in Show awards from the State Fair of Texas and the city of Richardson, Comer said he acquires photographs mainly through the photography auctions held at Heritage Auctions.

“I’ve been collecting photos for a long time,” Comer said. “I had some that were quite valuable that were just under a bed, and it concerned me that when we will be away from the house on vacation or something, that if there was a fire, they’d be destroyed. So I gave them to UTD.”

Having to choose from many photos in the Comer Collection, Cai said she was interested in the idea of communities, as they depict a wide range of subjects. The exhibition contains photos of social networks including families and neighborhoods and focuses on the importance of human connection.

“Context and communities can mean different things,” Cai said. “[Internal contexts] can mean [how] the photo is cropped so some have a wider frame, so it may have a different effect [on the audience]. External context [such as] captions or labels are being used to talk about these people [in the photos], and how all these things are kind of connected.”

Cai brought out the importance of these social connections in the exhibit by placing together photographers who knew each other in real life. For example, photographer Dorothea Lange is placed next to Marion Post Wolcott, both of whom were a part of the Farm Security Administration, or FSA, an agency founded during the Great Depression to document and alleviate rural poverty in the U.S. Other artists groupings center around members of the Photo League — a New York co-op that documents social causes — as well as the Magnum Photographers — an international co-op founded in the 1940s.

The main image in the exhibition is a photograph by Bill McDowell, who is also a part of FSA, called “Diptych.” Cai said this image is the starting point for the exhibition since the story behind the picture is a recontextualization of photographic meaning. According to the Context & Communities pamphlet, FSA’s goal was to promote the New Deal and help communities displaced in the Dust Bowl. “Diptych” consists of two photographs placed side by side: Mr. Tronson, Farmer Near Wheelock ND from Russel Lee in 1936 and Detail of Untitled, Alabama from Walker Evans in 1936. Both photographs have black holes punched in them, as the FSA director deliberately damaged 100,000 out of the 270,000 negatives in an attempt to keep them from being published.

The hole-punched pictures have been recontextualized and now represent a new meaning through their new display. According to the Context & Communities pamphlet, “the black holes can be perceived as an abstraction and re-imagined to be circular portals that connect the view to post-Depression America.” Gallery Manager Brian Scott said that his personal favorite picture in the exhibition is “Diptych.”

“[Diptych] is a collaboration over time,” Scott said. “The photographer went out and took these pictures, the editor hated them, punched a hole through them and a person who printed these did this [and] those are three different points in time, not related to each other, where this piece was built. It’s also like evolution in your life. These things change over time. They’re affected by other things, but it’s not a conscious effect.”

The photograph “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange explores the theme of home, showing a displaced mother who has worked hard to support her children despite being burdened by the struggles of everyday life. According to Cai, this photo shows how photography has been used to garner public support through government aid programs by depicting conditions of poverty.

“I was hoping that the [audience] would walk away with the feeling that they were able to find some photos they were able to connect with,” Cai said. “I was [also] hoping the text portions [in the exhibition] provided an educational component where they were able to see the beginning of photography and hopefully, they will get a sense that photographers are working in dangerous situations and the shift between the past and contemporary photography.”

Composition in landscape photography is an essential aspect of the craft. Many rules talk about leading lines, the rule of thirds, visual weight, and more. These rules are good guidelines, but the art of simplification is at the root of good compositions.

It is easy to talk about the technical aspects of landscape photography. From a firm grasp of how your camera works and the exposure triangle to more advanced techniques like focus stacking, exposure bracketing, or even the gear we use, those topics are relatively binary and procedural.

As we master these key concepts, the importance of strong composition becomes more evident. We know how to get a good exposure, we understand how to maximize the depth of field appropriate for the scene, but there is still something missing from our images. This often comes down to weak versus strong compositions as what makes or breaks an image.

Rules of Composition

There are many rules and guidelines for composition, most readily found once a photographer starts reading more about composition or scouring the internet for tutorials. These rules include ones like the rule of thirds, visual weight in the scene, framing the scene with elements in the landscape, or leading lines, to name a few. These all offer components of composition and are important, but it doesn’t take long to realize that simply applying these core rules can still leave something to be desired in your images.

For example, the rule of thirds is a prevalent rule and one that even gets the grid lines on our phone cameras to help aid in composition. The rule of thirds is a good guideline for composition, but in and of itself, it doesn’t necessarily make your photograph strong just because you follow it.

How often have you lined up your subject, maybe a rock prominence or a horizon just where it is supposed to be, but the image is still lacking? I have many of those images in my catalog, where I’ve lined things up using the rule of thirds or combined some leading lines, and watched the weight of the image and still not walked away with a portfolio photograph.

That’s because while the rules are an initial step towards a strong composition, they are missing an underlying rule that I think gets overlooked. “Overlooked” might not be the right word, maybe more that many of the rules of composition need to be paired with the underlying foundation of simplification.

Simplification

Simplification is the underlying composition element that will help strengthen your landscape photography images. It works in tandem with the commonly understood rules of composition to add that visual strength to your photographs to help them stand out.

What exactly does simplification of a photograph mean? It helps direct the viewer’s attention, it helps eliminate distractions from the image, and, as a result, makes the subject of your image stand out to the viewer. This reduces confusion for the viewer and leads to a more significant visual impact than just following the basic rules of composition.

The more important question is, how do you simplify a scene? My approach, which I am perpetually working on, is to figure out my main subject in the scene in front of me. What is drawing my attention and why? This is key; you must know your subject – both for simplifying and applying the general rules of composition.

From here, you start to work on your composition. Line things up in your viewfinder or live view to a point where the scene looks good to you, the starting point. Now, start to think even more about the composition. Take time to let your eyes look at the edges of the frame and start asking yourself if there are elements in the frame that distract you.

This could be objects awkwardly cut off at the edges of the frame, objects that aren’t contributing to the main subject that could be removed by zooming in some more, or even excessively bright areas of the scenes that aren’t directly related to the main subject.

Analyze what you have in the frame, and no matter how big or small, ask yourself if it contributes to the main subject or distracts from it. If it is a distraction, think about how you can recompose to minimize it.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Once you understand how simplification works in tandem with the traditional rules of composition, you can put the practice into composing your images moving forward. For me, composition is something I am always working to improve and part of why I find the hobby of landscape photography so engaging!

People of the Blue Water. People of the Tall Pines. People of the Four Sacred Mountains. These are the names of three Native American tribal nations, translated into English. You might be more familiar with other names: Havasupai, Hualapai, Navajo (or Diné).

But as photographer Matika Wilbur (Swinomish and Tulalip) discovered over a 12-plus-year journey photographing approximately 400 of the tribal nations of the United States, there is no separating Native American identity from the land itself. Wilbur’s ongoing photo series, Project 562 (a reference to the 562 federally recognized tribal nations in the country at the time), forms the basis of a fascinating new photo exhibition, Natural Wanderment: Stewardship. Sovereignty. Sacredness, on view at the 808 Gallery through March 8.

“We are our homelands,” Wilbur says in the foreword to her New York Times best-selling book, Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America (Ten Speed, 2023), which chronicles her ambitious project. “There is no separation. And what is done to Mother Earth, is done to us.”

By 2023, Project 562 had taken Wilbur 600,000 miles across all 50 states, traveling by RV from Alaska to Florida and everywhere in between. She interviewed and photographed hundreds of people and met thousands more. As she recounts in the foreword, she asked many of her subjects the same questions: “about sovereignty, blood quantum, overcoming racism, education, and what it means to be an Indian,” and the idea for Natural Wanderment came about when a large cross section of her responses veered toward the same notion.

“I realized that the better question is, what does it mean to be Tulalip or Swinomish or Warm Springs, and…those answers were more related to the original agreements of the land,” Wilbur said during a Q&A held by the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. “I started questioning…how do we maintain that land-based identity when, on many occasions, the land that we are from historically no longer resembles our original identity or our original agreement?”

In Natural Wanderment, Wilbur addresses that question through nearly 40 portraits of Native American individuals—a fraction of the total that make up Project 562—nearly all of them posed in front of breathtaking vistas: mountains, prairies, canyons, and lakes. In keeping with her thesis that the Native American experience is not monolithic, the photos included in the show reveal and celebrate the depth and breadth of Indigenous experience in North America. The land, the faces, the clothing, the rituals differ widely from the Miccosukee Nation of the Florida Everglades to the Kanaka Maoli of Hawaii, yet it’s the connection to the land—and the attempts by federal and local institutions to thwart that connection—that unites Wilbur’s subjects.

Among the portraits in the show is one of Starflower Montoya (Diegueño Barona and Taos Pueblo), who grew up in Southern California, but each year engages in a 12,000-year-old ritual pilgrimage to New Mexico’s Blue Lake, the most sacred site of the Taos Pueblo. It’s an act that in present times holds an even deeper layer of meaning, as the Taos Pueblo were denied sovereignty over the site for nearly 70 years, starting in 1906. The lake site was returned to the Taos Pueblo nation in 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed the Blue Lake Bill, the first successful piece of Native American land-back legislation.

Elsewhere in the exhibition is a portrait of Michael Frank (Miccosukee), a seer and guardian. “In his childhood in the Everglades, Frank’s family and community enjoyed plentiful fish and hunted for deer, bear, and alligator,” the accompanying caption reads. “Now widespread toxic mercury levels in the Everglades prevent the tribe from fishing, compromising this crucial aspect of the culture along with many others.” But Frank remains resolute.

“All our land is sacred…respect our sovereignty, respect our home, respect our tradition,” he says in the caption. “We know they will destroy our home if we walk and talk like the rest of the world.”

Natural Wanderment was brought to Boston University through a collaboration among Wilbur, the BU Arts Initiative, and BU Art Galleries. BUAG intern Bo Yeon Chon (GRS’26), who designed and arranged the exhibition in the 808 Gallery, was motivated to create a walk-through experience that was reminiscent of Wilbur’s own journey.

“It was an enlightening process to explore [Wilbur’s] project, and I had this enormous freedom to think about how to arrange the photographs,” Chon says. “I saw the relationship between the Native American people and the land, and how land informs identity, and I wanted to capture that in the display. I think it turned out kind of reminiscent of the road that Matika embarked on in her RV.”

Elana Harris (MET’23), BU Art Galleries interim managing director, hopes visitors will take from the exhibition a sense of permanence.

“Many of us grew up seeing portraits of [indigenous] people in the past, in history class. If you’re lucky you’ll read about indigenous land movements, but you never really hear about the present,” Harris says, “which is why these works are a reminder that everything is still very relevant and still very real.”

Wilbur is doing her own part to create a sense of permanence. While Natural Wanderment tours the country, its parent project, Project 562, is ongoing. Since its undertaking, 12 tribal nations have been added to the federal list, and moreover, there are “state-recognized Tribes, urban Indians, international Tribal communities, Tribes across the borders, and those whose status has been stifled, overlooked, or eradicated by Congress, which maintains plenary authority over our sovereignty and status,” she writes in her foreword.

“I might as well have called the work Project Forever, because as I found out, I could continue to visit with Tribal communities for the rest of my life and never meet them all.”

Natural Wanderment: Stewardship. Sovereignty. Sacredness. is on view at the 808 Gallery, 808 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, through March 8. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, from 11 am to 5 pm. Admission is free to the public.