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Just a Bunch of Stunning Award-Winning Photos of Spaces Reclaimed by Nature

​Coffee shop, Abkhazia. Jonk/Earth Photo 2020/RGS​, fotograf

The artist Jonk has been announced as the winner of the Earth Photo 2020 competition.

His series, Coffee Shop, Abkhazia; Hotel, Portugal; Swimming Pool, Italy and Theater, Abkhazia – which shows abandoned spaces reclaimed by nature – won the overall competition, as well as the Place category.

Jonk, a freelance self-taught photographer whose real name is Jonathan Jimenez, focuses his work on humans and their relationship with nature, to help raise awareness of the planet’s ecological crisis.

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© Jonk - Hotel,Portugal (Place category winner and overall winner).jpg
Hotel, Portugal. Photo: Jonk/Earth/Photo 2020/RGS

Earth Photo, an international competition created by Forestry England and the Royal Geographical Society, aims to encourage discussion about the world by telling stories about the planet and its inhabitants, and how both interact with each other.

© Jonk - Swimming Pool, Italy (Place category winner and overall winner).jpg
Swimming Pool, Italy. Photo: Jonk/Earth/Photo 2020/RGS

“We chose Jonk’s compelling photographs as the overall winner because of the high degree of skill and vision that they represent, and also because they exemplify Earth Photo by straddling the duality of human coexistence with nature,” said the chair of the judging panel, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Marissa Roth.

© Jonk -Theater, Abkhazia (Place category winner and overall winner).jpg
Theater, Abkhazia. Photo: Jonk/Earth/Photo 2020/RGS

You can see the other category prize winners below. Winners were chosen from a shortlist of 50 photographs and four films, out of more than 2,600 submissions in total.

Yanrong Guo won the People category for her striking image Miss taken of a pipe-smoking man in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, the largest settlement of ethnic minority Yi people in China.​ Photo: Yanrong Guo/Earth Photo 2020/RGS
Yanrong Guo won the People category for her striking image Miss taken of a pipe-smoking man in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, the largest settlement of ethnic minority Yi people in China.​ Photo: Yanrong Guo/Earth Photo 2020/RGS
© Charles Xelot - Dead Tree (Changing Forests category winner).jpg
Charles Xelot won the Changing Forests category for his work Dead Tree #1, which was taken of a contorted grey trunk, two years after a human-caused forest fire destroyed the landscape. Photo: Charles Xelot/Earth Photo 2020/RGS
© Joe Habben - In Moleca (A Climate of Change category winner).jpg
Joe Habben won the A Climate of Change category for In Moleca, an image which documents the effects of the ‘Acqua Alta’ (high-water) which transpires annually in the city of Venice. Photo: Joe Habben/Earth Photo 2020/RGS
© Yi Sun - Dryland Farming, Study 7 (Nature category winner).jpg
Yi Sun won the Nature category for his work Dryland Farming, Study 7, which depicts an aerial view of interlaced tractor lines carved into a Spanish farm suffering from drought. Photo: Yi Sun/Earth Photo 2020/RGS