I’ve recently had the pleasure of editing through some stunning photography by Daniel Beltra, who is a new contributor to the Reportage collection. Shooting in various locations for Greenpeace, Daniel has captured some stunning images documenting the environment and man’s influence on it, a few of which I’d like to share here.

Daniel brought me some amazing aerial images showing the systematic methods of deforestation inflicted on large areas of the Amazon rainforest in the name of industry. However, the images that really gave me goosebumps were these showing the Amazon region in one of the worst droughts ever recorded there. The alien landscapes of revealed river beds and stranded boats and the immense sense of scale is quite awesome and humbling….

Daniel Beltra/Getty Images

For scale, in the image above, can you spot large tree (white speck) on the lower right of the river bed?

Daniel Beltra/Getty Images

Daniel Beltra/Getty Images

A few months ago one of the good things that can occasionally happen to a photo editor happened to me…
a photographer who had been involved with Getty many years ago but had fallen off the radar for some time got in touch via the website and his contact details were forwarded to me by the Dublin office.

I looked at the work that Robert Van Der Hilst had sent and found it absolutely stunning. He’d spent quite a few years in China, travelling all over the country, meeting people and being invited into their homes and workplaces, to catch a glimpse of their way of life in both remote rural and urban areas.

© Robert Van Der Hilst

The more of the images i looked at, the the more absorbed i became. Together they make up a beautiful and fascinating document of a changing place and a people in flux, some clinging to ancient tradition while others embrace modernity, and others, somewhere in bewteen, live with familar elements of modernity in their homes, that look somehow out of place in this context.

©Robert Van Der Hilst

©Robert Van Der Hilst

Sometimes the people appear proud, or fascinated by the photographer’s interest, at other times they appear oblivious or turn their backs, not wanting have their face captured by the camera. 

©Robert Van Der Hilst

Sometimes the photographer decides to look away from them altogether and shows us possessions they live with or use daily. It’s sensitive and subtle work, and he never seems to have been treated as an intruder.

©Robert Van Der Hilst

At this moment in time the different ways that people are living within this one country seems amazing, and it seems unlikely that  lifestyles so diverse can co-exist for much longer.

©Robert Van Der Hilst

I thought i’d share a few of the images here and hope you will enjoy and find some inspiration from them, particularly in the light of the current Creative HOME brief!

There is a much larger selection of Robert Van Der Hilst’s Chinese Interiors and other images, recently uploaded to the Reportage collection.