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March 15: Week in Photography
Your lens to the internet's most powerful photographs. 📸 MOST POWERFUL PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📸 Ted S. Warren / AP In this powerful moment captured at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, Judie Shape (left), who has tested positive for the coronavirus, waves to her daughter, Lori Spencer, while separated by a glass window during a visit March 11.
This week saw a dramatic escalation in the spread of the coronavirus across the globe, and with it, unprecedented measures to help mitigate its spread. Follow along with BuzzFeed News as we continue our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
📸For Your 👀 Only: MONGOLIA IN FLUX WITH PHOTOGRAPHER SIMONE TRAMONTE
It can be difficult to keep perspective on how interlocked our modern world truly is, especially when individual struggles can seem insurmountable. Mongolia is one of the most remote regions on earth, but it is increasingly connected to the global economy via mining opportunities, which are radically reshaping the culture as herders give up their preferred way of life to move to the capital, Ulaanbaatar.
Simone Tramonte is an Italian photographer who has spent the past few months in Mongolia documenting how mining is affecting the local community of nomadic herders.
How did this project come about?
The idea for this story originates from a personal curiosity for a unique lifestyle that is slowly disappearing. I have studied the news of recent years and learned that Mongolia is experiencing very rapid economic growth, which is causing dramatic changes to the environment and to the traditional way of life, and I decided to go there and document this change. I prepared my stay to be in close contact with nomads still living in the steppe and in the desert, and with the ones that moved to Ulaanbaatar.
Mongolia, Cogtcėcij, 2019. Camels in front of a coal refinery in the Gobi Desert. Working with such contradictory futures — between the traditional nomadic life and city life — is there a sense among the people whom you photographed that one future is preferable to the other?
The impression I had while living with nomads is that they love this lifestyle and would never change for an apparently more comfortable urban life. The nomadic lifestyle is rooted in millenary culture. Mongolian shepherds, despite the daily challenges of this lifestyle, are proud and do not want to give up on being nomads, to live in contact with nature, and to experience the freedom of such a lifestyle. They would move only if forced to, and the main cause for nomads to move to the city is the loss of their livestock, their main source of sustenance.
Sometimes they follow other relatives who moved for the same reason. The majority move in the ger district, which does not have electricity, heating, running water, nor paved roads. Waste removal is inefficient and infrequent. Most of them live without centralized heating, and raw coal is the most affordable option. For these people, it is a challenge to adapt to the urban lifestyle.
Mongolia, Gobi, 2019. Nomadic families often manage herds of hundreds of goats, sheep, cattle, and horses. For context, what is some of the mining being done and by whom?
The mining is mostly to extract coal, gold, copper, silver. The mining is in part done by companies owned by the Mongolian government, such as in the coal mine Tavan Tolgoi. However, there is also heavy involvement of multinationals, as for instance with Oyu Tolgoi, a mine run by the Canadian corporation Rio Tinto.
The sourcing of these materials produces 30% of the country's GDP, but the emerging mining industry has upset the delicate environmental balance, subtracting water from the pastures and endangering the lives of the livestock. Furthermore, this shift from a mainly rural society to an economy based on the mining industry has not led to an increase in well-being for the population because it is dominated by multinational corporations and Chinese companies.
What were some of the challenges on this project?
Probably the main challenge was to face a difficult territory. The mines that I have visited are located in very remote and inaccessible areas of the South Gobi Desert. In most of the country there are no paved roads, but only gravel or dirt roads. Mongolia, Ulan Bator, 2019. Ulaanbaatar is growing rapidly, and there are plans to build high-rise homes for those living in the ger districts. But many residents don’t want to leave their traditional homes.
What do you hope that a viewer of this work will get out of it?
I would like the viewers of this work to stop and think of the effect of humans on the environment. Although Mongolia is one of least populated countries in the world, climate change and the impact of human activities is deeply changing the environmental conditions and the culture of this population. Climate change has a global impact, and pollution generated in any part of the globe affects the delicate balance of the country. Human activities, such as mining, as well as overpasture, have an effect too. A few years are changing a thousand-year-old culture. Mongolia, Gobi, 2019. Children carry water to their father’s ger. The main river providing surface water to the southern Gobi – the Undai River – has been diverted by the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mining.
📸THE WEEK'S PHOTO STORIES FROM BUZZFEED NEWS 📸 As the coronavirus pandemic continues its march across the globe, we've put together a gallery that shows the different ways communities around the world are going about their lives while enacting measures to help mitigate the spread of the virus. Our second gallery focuses on Italy, where the government has ordered a strict lockdown of the entire country, which currently is reporting over 12,000 cases of COVID-19.
And as a break from this hectic news cycle, take a journey into the colorful and surreal world of Tokyo after dark with photographer Liam Wong. His new book TO:KY:OO is a unique vision of the city transformed by light and reminiscent of cyberpunk classics like Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell.
Find more of the week's best photo stories here.
LIFE GOES ON: COMMUNITIES CONFRONT THE CORONAVIRUS Guglielmo Mangiapane / Reuters From the "Wuhan shake" to an increased focus on hand-washing, communities across the globe are taking precautions to protect themselves against the virus. SEE THE FULL STORY
ITALY IN LOCKDOWN: PICTURES FROM INSIDE THE QUARANTINE Marco Di Lauro / Getty Images Streets and businesses in Italy are left empty after the government ordered the quarantine of the entire country amid a growing coronavirus pandemic. SEE THE FULL STORY
NOCTURNAL NEON: A CYBERPUNK VISION OF TOKYO Liam Wong When the sun sets on Tokyo and its neon lights flicker into a soft electric glow, photographer Liam Wong hits the streets to capture a fantastic vision of the city at night. SEE THE FULL STORY
📸YOUR WEEKLY PALATE CLEANSER 📸 Kai-Otto Melau / Getty Images Let us all take a moment to praise Maisie, the adorable wirehaired dachshund who just took home Best in Show at the Crufts Dog Show in Birmingham, England, March 8. That's a good girl!
"That's it from us this time — see you next week!" —Gabriel and Kate “I fell in love with the process of taking pictures, with wandering around finding things. To me it feels like a kind of performance. The picture is a document of that performance.” —Alec SothWant More? Go To JPG Homepage
📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by the News Photo team. Gabriel Sanchez is the photo essay editor based in New York and loves cats. Kate Bubacz is the photo director based in New York and loves dogs. You can always reach us here.
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