Photograph of Moravia's rolling hills wins 2022 Earth Photo prize

Moravia's rolling hills have long been a favorite subject for local photographers, and one of them has a 2022 Earth Photo prize for his dynamic image. This year's winning Earth Photo pictures were announced on Friday in London by Britain's Royal Geographic Society, who award top photos from around the world annually.

Czech photographer Daniel Franc won the "Place" award, which is given to the top photo that represents a particular location, for his photograph Surfing the Spring. The photo depicts shades of green across rolling hills in the Czech Republic's South Moravian region.

"Daniel Franc won the Place category for his image Surfing the Spring, which celebrates vast green expanses in the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic," the Royal Geographic Society writes in a press release on its website.

"The rolling hills of these agricultural counties (sometimes called the ‘Czech Tuscany’) are exquisitely photogenic, yet the vistas are not always a sign of a good agriculture as many natural forests were cut to make space for fields."

Franc's picture was taken using an aerial drone, a style that the photographer has embraced in much of his work.

"In our country, drones have not been often used to take photos, classical photographers have not befriended this technology," Franc told reporters in London. "It can be called a new photography genre."

“Daniel Franc’s chosen view point has something special,” said photographer and Earth Photo 2022 judge Martin Hartley. “The angle requires some forethought and planning, he has taken something relatively ordinary and made it look like art, more than just a photograph.”

Franc added that while the winning picture of Moravia's green hills underwent some postproduction retouching to increase the contrast between the green parts of the hills and drier areas, nothing unnatural was added to the photo.

"The waves in the photo are no play of light, but areas afflicted by erosion," Franc said, adding that he never adds unnatural elements to his photographs, nor removes any natural artifacts from them.

Bangladeshi photographer Mohammad Rakibul Hasan won the overall 2022 Earth Photo competition as well as the People category for his photographs The Last Savings at Bengal Delta and The Climate Crisis, both of which depict the impacts of climate change and extreme weather conditions on everyday people in Bangladesh.

Other winners at this year's Earth Photo competition included Denmark's Pål Hermansen in the Nature category for his collection of insects found in a lamp; David Rippin in the Changing Forests category for his photo of the effects of Storm Arwen in Cumbria; and Sandra Weller in the Climate of Change category for a series of photos depicting how the village of Nymanarr, The Gambia was transformed following access to electricity.

You can see all the winning photos from this year's competition at the official Earth Photo website.