Roun Ry

Roun Ry is a freelance documentary photographer based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He focus on environmental and social issues and human interest across the country. 

As a Cambodian documentary photographer, Roun focuses on communities living around the Tonle Sap Lake, the Mekong River, and the mangrove forests in Cambodia’s coastal areas—regions undergoing rapid environmental and social transformation. His major personal projects, including Our Village, Resistance: To Live, and The Last Mangrove, examine how development, climate change, and displacement reshape people’s identities, livelihoods, and relationship to the land. Through these projects, he documents the everyday lives of fishing families on the Tonle Sap, the struggles of communities displaced by hydropower construction along the Mekong River, and the fragile ecosystems of Cambodia’s coastal mangrove forests. His photography is grounded in empathy and long-term engagement, weaving together human stories with the complex realities of environmental change.

Roun’s work has been widely published, appearing in The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera, China Dialogue, Asia Society, and Reuters. He has collaborated with numerous NGOs, including UNICEF UK, WHO, UN Women, CARE Cambodia, and RECOFTC Cambodia.