Devotees from of different religions from all over the world sing and dance to celebrate the Urs of Hazrat Inayat Khan. From Amit Mehra’s “Sufis: Messengers Of Peace”

Every horror story has a hero, and Dr. Denis Mukwege fits the roll. He is an example of a new way to be a man in Congo. Dr. Mukwege, left performs fistula surgery on a rape victim at the Panzi Hospital. The soft-spoken obstetrician-gynecologist, is the founder of the Panzi Hospital, the first fistula center in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Bukavu facility treats victims and trains doctors to repair the torn tissue. Fistula sufferers may stay here for months, first getting strong enough for the surgery, and then spending weeks on a catheter to make sure they heal properly. Dr. Mukwege, who sometimes performs 10 fistula surgeries in a day, says he can identify rapists by the wounds they leave behind. “I can tell which group it was who did it, even before she tells me,” he said.”Some use knives, fire, [assault] only the young, a bullet. This way, it is like they leave a signature on the body.” From Mary F. Calvert’s “Scarred For Life: PTSD In Rwanda”

Villagers of Yara plant seeds and plow the fields in early spring. From Taylor Weidman’s “Nomads No More”

Felicitas Contreras Santiago and Cristina Isidrio Salazar rest in the bedroom they often share after a hard day of caring for their goats and delivering wood on in San Pablo Huixtepec. Felicitas talks on the phone with her son and daughter that live in the U.S.. Both women were abandoned by their husbands who went to the U.S. in search of work. They have formed a special friendship and help care for each other and raise Felicitas’ grandson. The women are leaders in the community do hard physical labor. Immigration is tearing apart families and changing the societal roles in rural Mexico. Women are forced to work outside of their home and take on the roles of the missing men. From Dana Romanoff’s “No Man’s Land: The Women of Mexico”

Blue Earth invites amateur and professional photographers to engage the power of photographic storytelling in our Spring 2012 Blue Earth Photo Contest.

Our work at Blue Earth is based on the belief that a dramatic image can change our perception and alter our understanding of a subject. This idea defines our mission to raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments, and critical social concerns through photography. Blue Earth helps photographers educate the public and motivate society to make positive change - we invite contest entries that exemplify our mission and the power of photographic storytelling.

Entries will be judged by a panel of jurors, all professionals in the photographic field, on the criteria of quality, creativity, and visual narrative. The 1st place winner will receive $500, gear donated by Think Tank Photo, admission to our 2-day, 2012 photo workshop, and inclusion in the Blue Earth “Honors” gallery.

The entry period opened January 1, 2012 and closes at midnight Pacific Time on March 31, 2012. The entry fee is $25 for one photo, $5 per additional photo. Proceeds from this contest benefit Blue Earth’s mission and help support our sponsored documentary projects.

Photo from Frans Lanting’s recent Blue Earth project LIFE: A Journey Through Time

Hands of an albino mother and her black son. From Rozarii Lynch’s “Life in Peril: Tanzanian Albino People”

K. gets questioned by the police after hopping the subway turnstile at Penn Station. As she did not have any identification on her, she was in danger of being arrested (as per the law in New York State). Instead, the officer gave her a ticket. Many homeless LGBT find themselves in similar situations: lacking identification (usually because such documents were destroyed by their biological families as a method of control, or lost in foster care or jail), they run the risk of arrest, even in relatively minor encounters with the police. Since many young people do not have the money to pay any fines levied by a ticket, warrants and then jail time follow. November 2006. From Samantha Box’s “Invisible”

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. From Asim Rafiqui’s “The Idea of India: Religious and Cultural Pluralism as Resistance to Sectarian Conflict”

We are pleased to invite applicants for the Blue Earth Prize For Best Project Photography at the PhotoAlliance 2012 Our World Portfolio Review. This award offered in partnership with PhotoAlliance provides recognition for photographic work best representing our mission: To raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments and social concerns through photography.

This award will highlight the work of one attendee in a special Honors section of the Blue Earth website. Blue Earth will also waive the application fee for the winning photographer to submit for Blue Earth project sponsorship as well as offer free membership for one year. Up to three runners-up will also be offered free submission for Project Sponsorship and a free one-year Blue Earth membership.

PhotoAlliance 2012 Our World Portfolio Review
Addressing the Creative Ways We Explore, Portray, Express and
Connect Through Images.

March 9-11, 2012 in San Francisco
To guarantee a high quality experience, the event will be pre-juried. Deadline to submit your portfolio for consideration February 10th, 2012. For questions contact thom@photoalliance.org.

Reviewers are committed professionals representing a cross section of our community including book and magazine publishers, packagers and editors, museum, non-profit and commercial gallery directors, curators and leading educators and photographers.

Two Sureo gang members are denied entrance into the home of a friend and fellow gang member by the friend’s mother in Grant County, Washington in January 2010. From Mike Kane’s “Gangland, USA: The proliferation of Latino gangs in rural America”