Mitch Epstein: 2011 Prix Pictet winner - in pictures

Gavin coal power plant, Cheshire, Ohio 2003. Epstein says: 'In 2003, I was asked to photograph the erasure of a small town in Ohio. In Cheshire, houses were being razed by the hour and streets were nearly emptied of human life. American Electric Power, one of the world’s largest utility companies, had bought out the town and issued a gagging order to silence its residents, after increasing complaints that AEP’s plant had contaminated the health of Cheshire’s citizens. I was not the same after this trip. The cost of growth, with its implicit energy demands, had become terrifyingly vivid' Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

BP Carson Refinery, California , 2007. 'I had seen firsthand the grave results of fossil fuel production on human life and our ecosystem. To further examine the role of energy in the United States, I embarked on a five-year long, 25-state project called American Power. I photographed a consumerist society inured to the consequences of unbridled consumption. Many living in the shadows of power plants despaired their polluted water and air, but did not have the economic resources to relocate. Growth no longer meant progress but self-destruction,' Epstein says Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

Biloxi, Mississippi 2005 Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

Amos coal power plant, Raymond City, West Virginia, 2004. The prestigious Prix Pictet photography prize is awarded for the most successful use of photography to tackle social and environmental issues and comes with a £65,000 (CHF 100,000) grant Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

Hoover dam and Lake Mead, Nevada/Arizona 2007 Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

Iowa 80 truck stop, Walcott, Iowa 2008. 'American Power is an active response to the American Dream gone awry. My project focuses on the United States not only because I am American, but because the US has exported its model of unrestricted growth around the world in the form of mass consumerism, corporatism and sprawl' Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

Signal Hill, Long Beach, California 2007 Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

Ocean Warwick oil platform, Dauphin Island, Alabama 2005 Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

Las Vegas, Nevada 2007. 'We now need to export a revised model of growth, a revised American Dream' Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet

Century wind project, Blairsburg, Iowa 2008. 'I included pictures in American Power of renewable energy – wind, biotech, solar – to show that a healthier, more economical and compassionate way of life is possible. American Power bears witness to the cost of growth; and it asks viewers to consider the landscape they have altered – and take responsibility for it' Photograph: Mitch Epstein /2011 Prix Pictet