As biological researcher Kelly Estrada Piedrahita and her assistant, Shirley Fench, made their way through a slime-green-covered lake in a small boat, fellow researcher and photographer Haolun “Allen” Tian stood at the shore monitoring the pair with his drone.
Allen, currently defending his biological sciences PhD at Canada's Queen’s University, Kingston, captured this camera drone image back in 2021 during a project to collect water samples from the lake.
The researchers specialize in freshwater ecosystems and this lake – Dog Lake, Ontario – is infested with algal species that “kill fish and clog water supplies,” said Allen.
As anthropogenic climate change worsens, rising temperatures create ripe conditions for destructive algal blooms. Allen’s image tells the story of humanity’s impact on freshwater ecosystems.
“I took this photo as a nadir (top-down) shot with my drone, from around 100m above,” he says. “By capturing my field assistants in the middle of a bloom, I juxtaposed the relatively small scale of humans to the massive scale of our impact on the environment.”
The image, which Allen shot with a DJI Mini 4 Pro using automatic settings, was recently awarded a Scientists at Work photo award.
The prestigious scientific photography competition is organized by academic journal publisher Nature, and Allen hopes the recognition will spread awareness of the environmental issues impacting freshwater ecosystems.
“Freshwater ecosystems are near and dear to me, as the topic of both my master's and PhD research. Lakes and rivers are the cradle of human civilization, and threats to them represent threats to not just terrestrial ecosystems, but also human society and wellbeing,” he says.
Allen’s image was one of five winning shots from the 2026 Scientists at Work awards, which included images of conservationists guiding northern bald ibises in flight as well as marine researchers collecting skin samples from a whale shark.
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