TOKYO-2017

Settlement on the Edge of Water series

  • Photographer
    Stuart Chape

These images are part of an ongoing project to record aerial images of human settlement patterns at the edge of water. Most of these are at the ocean’s edge. Humans have a fascination or a compelling need to live at the interface of land a water in its different forms. For villages in the developing world this includes the need to be near the sea where they can fish for livelihoods and sustenance. For developed societies it means a lifestyle choice, often for the rich, or the opportunity for holidays in exotic locations. All of the different kinds human settlement for distinct patterns of existence or living through the structures that they build, and most are threatened by rising seas resulting from climate change, making these human endeavours and transformations of the environment ephemeral.