The White Cliffs of Iturup

Alexey Kharitonov's Image

Flying his drone, Alexey was awestruck by the pristine landscape revealed on his screen. A vast beach of volcanic sand was being pounded by ocean waves and pure-white cliffs were covered in a carpet of green Kuril bamboo. Alexey wanted to capture the ‘beauty and uniqueness’ of the island’s white cliffs and its wild, unspoiled landscape.

These pumice cliffs formed long ago in a volcanic eruption. Bubbles of gas escaping from magma rose from below the Earth’s crust, cooling and solidifying at the surface to form a rock full of pockets of air. Scars on the landscape demonstrate this soft rock’s vulnerability to erosion from wind and rain.

Behind the lens

Alexey Kharitonov

Alexey Kharitonov

Israel/Russia

Alexey is a self-taught amateur photographer who’s been passionate about landscape and nature photography for more than two decades. His photographs have won prizes in many wildlife and travel photography competitions and his photo projects have been selected for a number of exhibitions and photo festivals in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and New York. In recent years he’s focused on photographic research in Russia, conveying in his photographs the pristine beauty of hard-to-reach corners of the Russian North, Siberia and the Far East.

Image details

  • DJI Mavic Pro
  • 26mm f2.2 lens
  • 1/3200 sec at f2.2  •   ISO 100
  • Cape Konakova, Iturup Island, Russia
Copyright in WPY competition photographs remains the property of the respective photographers. You may not copy, share, reproduce or republish the photographs except as expressly permitted by copyright law. For media image usage enquiries, please contact us.

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