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A photographer has traveled to four continents to explore humanity’s relationship with its most vital resource.
Nov 13, 2016 | Samantha Cowan
Hundreds swim in a crowded public pool in New York City. Children sit in dry stretches of desert in Pakistan. Men bathe in a river in India. American photographer Mustafah Abdulaziz’s pictures offer a peek into the many ways that people across the world interact with water.
The Berlin-based photographer has spent the past four years snapping pictures of water for his series of photos that fall under the broad title of Water. He has committed to photographing water until 2025, making his project a 15-year-long venture.
Abdulaziz’s photographs focus on limited access to water, pollution of shared sources, and the impact of climate change on access to drinking water. By 2025, half the world’s population will live in water-scarce areas, according to the World Health Organization.
While much of the work highlights access issues, Abdulaziz is quick to point out that the project isn’t limited to a single issue. He said the series creates “a new way of portraying water by what our behavior with this resource means to ourselves and our planet.”
Abdulaziz hopes the series encourages people to become “closer to their natural world, to feel like despite tragedy or difficulty, that our planet is something we share, and that it is a magnificent place hanging in the balance of many problems.”
Unsafe water point during cholera outbreak. Kroo Bay, Freetown, Sierra Leone, 2012.
“The project began around the most basic part of water, which is, logically, human access to clean water, the ramifications of poor water sources on people, and the structures and barriers that make water, or the lack of it, either vital or deadly,” Abdulaziz explained. At the start of the series, he traveled to Freetown, Sierra Leone, which was in the midst of confronting the consequences of consuming unsanitary water. In 2012, the West African country was grappling with cholera, which is spread by bacteria that is often found in water and food sources contaminated with feces. The 2012 outbreak killed roughly 300 people and infected more than 22,000 citizens, according to the World Health Organization.
Photo: Mustafah Abdulaziz
Children journey to collect water. Sindh, Pakistan, 2013.
Roughly 16 million people in Pakistan don’t have access to clean water, according to nonprofit organization WaterAid. The burden of gathering water often falls to children, which can negatively affect their education. Rather than study or go to school, they are often forced to travel long distances to collect water for their families’ daily needs. In Asia and Africa, children travel an average of 3.7 miles daily to obtain water.
Photo: Mustafah Abdulaziz
Uchiya Nallo, 8 months pregnant. Konso Region, Ethiopia, 2013.
Not only is water collection time-consuming, but it can prove dangerous as well. The woman featured in this image is eight months pregnant and traversing a mountainside to collect water.
Photo: Mustafah Abdulaziz
Water pump for 800 people. Osukputu, Nigeria, 2015.
Roughly 57 million people in Nigeria do not have access to clean water, according to WaterAid. While providing water to such a large group of people may sound daunting, Abdulaziz found that individuals and small innovations can make a big difference.
“I saw change most prevalent and effective when individuals felt empowered, when they could make concentrated decisions on a small scale that aligned with their immediate communities,” Abdulaziz wrote.
This water pump may look modest, but it provides clean, safe water to a community of 800 people.
Photo: Mustafah Abdulaziz
Astoria Park Pool. Queens, New York City, USA, 2016.
Along with considering water as a scarce resource, Abdulaziz aims to capture how humans interact with large supplies—whether bathing in a nearby river or taking a dip in a local pool.
Astoria Park Pool in Queens is the largest and oldest public pool in New York. Open during the hot city summers, it can accommodate about 3,000 people.
Photo: Mustafah Abdulaziz
The Yangtze River. Chongqing, China, 2015.
Abdulaziz has relationships with several organizations, including the United Nations and WaterAid, that support his work. Thanks to a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, he traveled to China to photograph the Yangtze River, the third-longest river in the world.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, the amount of pollution that flows into the river has increased by 73 percent over the past 50 years thanks to the growing agriculture and shipping industries.
Photo: Mustafah Abdulaziz
Construction of bridge over Ganges tributary. Bihar Province, India, 2013.
The Ganges River is considered holy by India’s Hindu population, who believe the river’s water can cleanse their sins and who scatter cremated remains into the river in a tradition meant to free the soul.
Cremated remains, along with industry waste from the nation’s growing economy, have made the Ganges the most polluted river in the word. That’s a big problem for the 500 million people who use water from the Ganges for cooking, bathing, and drinking.
Photo: Mustafah Abdulaziz
Lake Mead, Hoover Dam. Nevada, USA, 2015.
Lake Mead provides water to people living in Arizona, Nevada, and California.
Following years of drought in California and other Western states, the water level in the human-made reservoir at the Arizona-Nevada border has dropped to historic lows. In May of this year, Lake Mead was just 37 percent full, according to NASA. The faint white lines, or bathtub rings, in this photo show the difference between the current level of water and that in the past.
Photo: Mustafah Abdulaziz
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