Introduction
“Third Landscape” is a global online photography contest organized by cizucu and open to all creators registered on the platform. By curating outstanding submissions, the contest aims to discover emerging talent and support creators through the cizucu community.
This edition’s theme was “Third Landscape.”
The Third Landscape derives from “Tiers-paysage,” a concept proposed by French botanist Gilles Clément. It encompasses vacant lots, abandoned sites, railway verges, and wastelands in urban and rural environments that have been left outside human management and development. Although these places lie beyond the logic of productivity and efficiency, they also provide vital space in which diverse forms of life can survive.
Places in which society found no value.
Places pushed beyond the bounds of urban planning.
Landscapes left unnamed and overlooked.
Or places of belonging that exist only in someone’s memory.
This contest brought together a range of perspectives directed toward these peripheral landscapes.
We are pleased to introduce the submissions and award-winning works.
Submissions
Photo by Victor lin
Victor lin
cizucu Editorial Team
This is a strangely compelling work. Its appeal may lie in the way isolated figures inhabit an open, plaza-like expanse.
It is neither a ruin, wasteland, nor vacant lot. Within this ambiguous, unclassifiable place, the work quietly observes how people and nature coexist, each maintaining its own sense of distance and presence. The result feels like a landscape grounded in reality.
By deliberately adopting a more distant viewpoint, the photographer brings the atmosphere and relationships within the site itself—rather than any individual—to the fore. Without overexplaining, the work leaves ample room for interpretation.
Photo by alex_photo_archive
alex_photo_archive
“Life begins where maintenance ends”
cizucu Editorial Team
Life begins where maintenance ends.
At first glance, the faded rainbow-colored steps and vegetation-covered surroundings may appear to be nothing more than a ruin. Yet even after maintenance has ceased, the staircase may still retain its function as a passageway. Rather than excluding one another, concrete and vegetation quietly vie for space along their shared boundary, shaping a new landscape.
“Ruin,” “vacant lot,” or “Third Landscape”—the way we name a place can fundamentally alter how we perceive it. This work moves beyond the binary opposition between managed and abandoned landscapes, directing our attention instead toward the rich condition that exists between them. It is a work that quietly embodies the perspective needed to discover the “Third Landscape.”
Photo by Yosuke0312
Yosuke0312
“Only love and courage are my friends...”
cizucu Editorial Team
Are you familiar with Anpanman? This discarded children’s ride may evoke entirely different impressions depending on one’s cultural context. For those who know Anpanman, it may seem humorous and nostalgically familiar. For viewers without that frame of reference, however, it might appear as an eerie and uncanny object.
Whether or not we recognize what an image signifies—its index—can profoundly alter how we perceive a landscape. By questioning this relationship between seeing and knowing, this work boldly engages with the theme of the “Third Landscape.”
Award-Winning Works
Photo by Thomas_J
Thomas_J
📷 RICOH GR DIGITAL III
cizucu Editorial Team
The figure of a child running through the ruins suggests multiple realities within this landscape. Why did this place fall into ruin? While the work invites us to imagine the passage of time and the history behind it, the child’s innocence stands out beyond those accumulated meanings and memories—transforming even a ruin into a playground.
The monochrome treatment strips away extraneous information, bringing the light and shadow, the space, and the child’s presence into sharp relief. Spare yet eloquent, this sophisticated work quietly evokes the landscape’s past and present, as well as the renewed vitality emerging within it.
Photo by wayfarer0915
wayfarer0915
I parked beneath the skeletal concrete, where silence and weeds reclaim what ambition left behind, now just a quiet lot for forgotten cars.
🎞 Kodak Gold100, Expired 2009
cizucu Editorial Team
A concrete structure reduced to its bare skeleton. It is unclear whether it was abandoned before completion or became a ruin over time. In the vacant lot, forgotten cars that will never move again have been quietly left behind.
Yet within this ambiguous, liminal landscape, people continue with their lives today.
The slightly faded blue of the sky—an effect produced precisely because the film was expired—imbues the scene with an atmosphere suspended somewhere between reality and a dream. It is a work perfectly suited to this edition’s theme.
In Closing
What did you think?
Places that have slipped beyond human management and development, landscapes overlooked at the edges of everyday life, and places that continue to endure in someone’s memory—the works submitted to “Third Landscape” offered an opportunity to look anew at the quiet richness found within such overlooked spaces.
We look forward to encountering more diverse works shaped by the perspectives of creators throughout the community.