Mitch Epstein has been awarded the 2011 Prix Pictet, an award for photography that tackles social and environmental issues. Epstein was nominated for his series American Power, which studies the different ways in which the country produces and uses energy and how that impacts on the landscape and environment.

Mitch Epstein via Prix Pictet

Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia. 2004.

Mitch Epstein via Prix Pictet

BP Carson Refinery, California. 2007.

Epstein says the project "asks everyone to look harder at their daily relationship to energy" and seeks to instigate a discussion about "the direction of American power. It is an opportune, if not crucial, moment in the history of the United States to discuss what it has done and could do with its natural resources, wealth, and might, but also its brain power, power of imagination, and power of community."

Mitch Epstein via Prix Pictet

Biloxi, Mississippi. 2005.

Mitch Epstein via Prix Pictet

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead,
Nevada/Arizona. 2007.

Read more about the work at Epstein's American Power website and at Prix Pictet.