Joan de la Malla's Image

Joan de la Malla (Spain) conveys the beauty of the 120-metre-high (394-feet-high) Tumpak Sewu waterfall.

Joan had to visit the falls on six consecutive days to get the right light conditions to convey this dreamy, almost fantasy-like atmosphere.

He had wanted a vertical image, but it wasn’t possible to orient the drone to do it. Instead, he took three horizontal images with his drone and later stitched them together.

The photograph is a striking and deliberate contrast with Joan’s other work, which documents some of the most contaminated rivers in the world.

From the flanks of the active Semeru volcano, the highest peak on Java, rainwater begins its journey down the river. It winds through pristine jungles before reaching the waterfall. Here the Glidik River is clean, but as the water travels towards the Indian Ocean it becomes polluted from agriculture, human settlements and modern industry.