TIFA 2024 Portfolio / Personal

Melting Beauty

  • Prize
    Bronze in Portfolio/Personal
  • Photographer
    Joson
  • Agency / Studio
    Joson Studio- Sf
  • Photo Date
    2021-2022

Amid Alaska's glaciers, my aerial photos reveal stark beauty amidst profound transformation due to a warming world. Since 1949, with temperatures rising by 5ºF, the National Park Service reports that 95% of these ice masses are retreating, impacting ecosystems. Vibrant glacial blues against shifting ice illustrate nature's splendor against climate change's harsh reality. My photography not only showcases Earth's resilience and fragility but also invites reflection on the delicate equilibrium sustaining these majestic glaciers and our planet at large.

Award-winning photographer joSon was born in the Philippines to a Filipino mother and an African American father. Sent to live with his mother’s family in Vietnam at age ten, he was educated in a Buddhist temple in preparation for becoming a monk. “I thought that was my calling long before I saw life through the viewfinder,” joSon recollects. “But the truth is, I have never left the monk-hood. I just left the temple.” Today joSon is a professional photographer based in San Francisco whose work is collected by an international list of clients.