ELLIOT ROSS : 2025 Daylight Photo Award

In Monument Valley on June 7, 2024, Tim Holiday embraces the first rain in months, and the arrival of monsoon season.

The San Juan River winds its way along the north-east boundary of the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation relies predominantly on the San Juan River which bounds much of the northern reaches of the reservation.

 

A quiet struggle for water endures in Goulding, UT. One garden spigot supplies a couple hundred residents with drinking water.

There are 2,500 swimming pools in Washington County. Fed by groundwater, this 2.4 acre private pool with a half-mile shoreline is one of the ten largest freshwater pools in the world.
 

Effie, with “CHANGE“ printed across her shirt, wants exactly that–for the Diné to have access to safe, reliable, and affordable water in their homes.

The aridity of Washington County isn’t immediately apparent with its lush urban landscape of grass lawns, large pools, parks, and 17 golf courses.

During a dust storm at her home in Monument Valley, Effie Yazzie fills water tanks for her horse using water she hauled from a spring 30 minutes away. During the summer months, Effie needs to collect water four times a week. 

“My kids would say, ‘Mom, did we ever have running water?’” Linda Jackson says. “And I would say, ‘Kids, we did all the running.’” In the dry bathroom built separate from her house in Monument Valley, Linda washes her hair in a tub.  

One of Effie Yazzie’s horses greets her as she pulls into her yard with a full load of water after a long day of making multiple trips to fill the animal troughs and the barrels that surround her home in Monument Valley.  

A small pool of water fed by monsoon storms collects behind a dam that the Yazzie family built to help sustain their horses through the hot summers in Monument Valley. 

Tim Holiday on a pinnacle above his family home in Monument Valley. Like many Diné, Tim feels his demands for running water amount to shouts in the wind. 

The 2025 Daylight Photo Award winner is Elliot Ross

Elliot Ross whose long term project documents the stark inequities of power and access across rural and racial lines within the Navajo Nation–the largest Native reservation in the U.S.   

 

Showcase for Elliot Ross 

 

"In the Navajo Nation–the largest Native reservation in the U.S.–water is not taken for granted. Here, more than 1 in 3 Diné must haul water to their rural homes, often across long distances. The Diné, who are 67 times more likely to lack running water than the average American, use the least amount of water per person in the U.S., but pay the most. Eighty miles away, residents of Utah’s Washington County rely on the same water supply yet pay less for that water than almost anyone in the U.S., and, until recently, consumed the most. The contrast reflects not only inequities of power and access across rural and racial lines. It also carries a warning that reaches beyond the two arid communities. On June 22, 2024 the planet experienced its hottest day in recorded history, breaking a record set one day earlier. Dust clouds churn on the horizon while a line for water stretches for hours. Much of the world may be headed this way."

"As the American Southwest continues to endure its driest period in 1,200 years, lawmakers have an opportunity to make significant changes to how water is allocated and address equity gaps. For the first time in over a century, the federal government is drafting a new plan—one that anticipates a drier future and sets the world’s most litigated river system on a sustainable path. It also promises to include meaningful tribal input meant to address structural inequities in a water supply divided along racial lines. Indigenous communities, whose relationship with the federal government has been largely defined by broken promises, remain deeply skeptical."- Elliot Ross

 

Showcase for the Jurors top picks:

 

Nathalie Bertrams  

(Elizabeth Avedon, Independent Curator)
Justin Carney  

(Emily Bogle, Senior Visual Editor, NPR)
Caroline Gutman  

(Bridget Harris, Director, Photography Creative, Airbnb)
Brian Lau  

(Oscar Rivera, Managing Director, En Foco)
Chanell Stone 

 (Asha Iman Veal, Associate Curator, MoCP)