SA drone photographer's stark dividing lines catch UN's attention
Image: Johnny Miller
A Cape Town photographer who uses drone images to highlight the stark inequalities between poor and wealthy urban areas has been named as a finalist for a UN award.
Johnny Miller’s Unequal Scenes photographs reveal the impact of poverty and social inequality on the way cities have developed.
His work will go up against two other projects in the Visualiser category in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal Action Awards in Germany in May.
More than 2,000 entries from 142 countries have been whittled down to three finalists in each of seven categories. The awards aim to raise awareness of the challenges of transforming the world into a more sustainable place.
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Unequal Scenes began in 2016 with help from Code for Africa and the Atlantic Fellowship for Social and Economic Equity. Miller's mission is to communicate inequality between communities.
"Unequal Scenes is a great way to help spark conversations on inequality and to visualise difficult-to-understand concepts which are usually expressed through data," said Miller.
"Moreover, this is a project about inequality, not poverty, and the images do a good job of representing that distinction."
Miller's photos have been used by organisations as diverse as the UN, the London School of Economics, Oxfam, the University of Cape Town, Greenpeace and National Geographic to illustrate inequalities.
Image: Johnny Miller/millefoto.com
The UN's Sustainable Development Goals are a set of targets for developmental change across the world that aim to address a range of issues such as poverty, hunger, education, clean water, climate change and justice.
Miller says being involved in the competition means an opportunity to get the attention of officials who can make changes locally and globally, including in SA.
"The UN also is closely aligned with national decision-makers in countries who actually can make policy recommendations to help alleviate inequality," he said.
Miller, who is continuing his work capturing high-resolution images in Brazil, India and the US, is now also paying it forward in Africa with a new project, africanDRONE. It aims to use drones "to give citizens powerful new ways to better understand their world and to improve public accountability".
The projects of the 21 finalists for the 2019 SDG awards can be seen here.