QINGDAO: One photo shows Wanee Mainuam, a 60-year-old Thai woman, glumly clutching a bundle of fish -- all that is left after rising water temperatures decimated crustacean life in her local fishery and deprived her of much of her income.

"If climate change continues like that, I'll have to leave this place. But where can I move? The only thing I can do is fishing," the caption quotes her as saying.

The image is one of 45 photos by two award-winning Swiss photographers who are aiming to focus attention on people suffering in the unfolding disaster of climate change.

The exhibition is making its world debut at the Olympic Sailing Museum in Qingdao, east China's Shandong province, from September 1 to 14, under the theme "Think about our climate."

Taken by Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer, the pictures show no esoteric statistics, but just the faces of ordinary people.

The pair spent eight months travelling to 16 countries on five continents to record the suffering caused by climate change.

Unlike the devastation caused by earthquakes or tsunamis, the distress inflicted by climate change was cumulative and often went unnoticed, said Fischer.

"We hope our photographs can bring more public attention to these victims," said Fischer.

Braschler and Fischer started to collaborate in 2003 and won a World Press Photo Award in 2006 with "Faces of Football," a collection of close-up portraits of the 30 biggest football stars.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Embassy of Switzerland in China.

Source: Xinhua