1st Place, "White Gold" by Luca Locatelli

Rarely has a material so inclined to stay put been wrenched so insistently out of place and carried so far from its source. In Italy’s most marble-rich area, known as the Apuan Alps, the abundance is surreal. Hundreds of quarries have operated there since the days of ancient Rome and Michelangelo sculpted most of his statues from this stone. Now the trade is booming due to the demand from Saudi Arabia and other gulf states. The photographs of this area's majestic quarries reveal an isolated world; beautiful, bizarre and severe. It is a self-contained universe of white; simultaneously industrial and natural.