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Documentary

Kiran Ridley

Photographer

Kiran Ridley

Australian Bush Fires

The 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, dubbed the’ Black Summer’ began with several serious uncontrolled fires in June 2019, which peaked in December/January, with hundreds of fires across Australia’s six states.

The fires burnt an estimated 18.6 million hectares of land ( 186,000 square kilometres), destroying over 2500 homes and killing at least 34 people. An estimated one billion animals have been killed as a result of the fires, driving some endangered species to extinction.

Whilst the causes and contributing factors continue to be debated the economic, environmental and social effects will be felt for years to come as communities try to rebuild after the worse bushfires in over 45 years.

This series is not only a vision of Australia facing the bushfires but also the environmental state of emergency in which the world is finding itself; global warming, extreme weather fronts and aggressive climate changes.

Kiran Ridley

Kiran is an award winning photographer working throughout Europe and Asia. Most of his work concentrates on news, social political topics and the human experience. Fascinated by people and naturally curious by the human condition, Kiran, is passionate in documenting ongoing situations throughout the world, capturing the human dynamic, trying to seize the unexpected in a succession of unique moments that we humans create, whether in our hopes and dreams, or our anger. His work is published throughout the world including The Sunday Times Magazine, The Times, The LA Times, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Figaro, Le Point, Die Welt, El Pais, Forbes, Observer and Guardian newspapers, Time, Spiegel, amongst many others. Based in Paris, his work is distributed with leading photographic agencies Getty Images (Europe) and Polaris Images in the United States.