Landscape Shortlist

After five days of unprecedented wildfires in the summer of 2025, the Corbières massif in France became a vast landscape of scorched earth. Although the photographer has been living in Japan for 20 years, he originates from this region and returned to photograph what remained of a forest reduced to ash. Influenced by the minimalism of early Japanese black-and-white prints, he employed a paper filter over the camera lens and worked at night under artificial lighting. The resulting images blur the perception of reality, the photographer explains, creating a purity of form that resonates with a deep sense of devastation.