World Press Photo winners announced

Jarle Aasland

Jarle Aasland

Nikon SP/S2, Fuji X100
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The international jury of the 53rd annual World Press Photo Contest has selected a photo by the Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo as the World Press Photo of the Year 2009. The picture depicts women shouting in protest from a rooftop in Tehran on 24 June.

More info and winner's gallery: http://www.worldpressphoto.org

Personally, I can't understand why this particular photo was judged the best press photo in the world in 2009. Strange. Anyone else?

Jarle
 
I think as photographers, and especially PJ's, we are pretty much talking only to each other with our work these days.

Just another photo among many. Photojournalism is dead. Just haven't had the funeral yet.
 
Marco Vernaschi's stuff was absolutely the bomb! well deserved.

I hear the "journalism is dead" business every time I meet up with the local photojournalist crowd downing liquor and moaning about their future. I couldn't go this week as I would have had to turn down a job.
 
Jarle Aasland said:
Personally, I can't understand why this particular photo was judged the best press photo in the world in 2009. Strange. Anyone else?

Jarle
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I don't understand it. Ok it's a nice available light photo. But if you only see this photo without knowing the context, there is nothing important or moving in this photo.
 
tom.w.bn said:
I don't understand it. Ok it's a nice available light photo. But if you only see this photo without knowing the context, there is nothing important or moving in this photo.
Click to expand...

Maybe it was extremely hard to get the shot, given the political circumstances at the time.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
Do you think photos should be judged by how hard they are to take?
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Yes, sometimes:
594px-Apollo_11_bootprint.jpg
 
JSU said:
Often contest winners are considered not merely on the actual image but the significance of the context in which the image was made.

Short of someone capturing the event of the Second Coming or the moment of the assassination of a major world leader, next year's awards will be for photos made in Haiti within the past month. My point being unless you were there, or happen to be in place for one of the above mentioned potentialities, don't bother entering any of the annual PJ contests in any of the news categories.

Of course for World Press there is always Portrait/Personality and Science that are open to those PJ's who weren't able to get to Haiti.

Additionally, I offer the following to clarify my position on photo contests:

"I detest giving prizes in photography. By competing, you copy and when you copy you are no more yourself, because you are obsessed by somebody else. And even if you try to do something else, the direction of your envy has already taken you away from your area." -- Ernst Haas (clipped by me from a photo magazine more than 20 years ago and taped to the walls of at least three different darkrooms. As well as:

Contestitis, a column written by Richard Rogers under "View From the City Desk" in issue 0003 of The Digital Journalist (.org).

And I will admit to having entered more than one photo contest in the last 35 years.
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this is sort of contradicted by last years winner.
 
I can`t follow this statement of the jury chair:

"It touches you both visually and emotionally, and my heart went out to it immediately"

The photo shows three women on a roof top, one of them shouting, one sitting and one blurred in motion. From the photo alone I can`t see that much context to the story behind it .... :confused:
 
I liked last year's winner. This one fails my internal "so what" test, even allowing for the turmoil in Iran that lies beyond the edges of the image.
 
Same thing every single year. "It's only a policeman in a messed up house pointing his gun at nobody, I could have taken this shot!"

Obviously the jury is flawed. And I'm glad the obligatory "PJ is dead" quote came that quickly, otherwise I'd really have started to worry.

martin
 
tom.w.bn said:
Someone enteres north korea illegally, travelles unknown to Pjöngjang and photographs a rather unspectacular scene. I think this one is really hard to take and it could be an interesting story about the dangers in north korea. But does this convert the unspectacular scene to a price winning press photo? Don't think so.
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TIME magazine thinks so. Any of the following pictures could have been taken elsewhere. It's the location that makes the difference.
http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/north_korea_morris/
 
Wow, some of those images are hardcore. I usually enjoy the Honorable Mentions more than the winners. I've seem allot of things in my travels but never a stoning. I think I'd rather be shot.
 
Series I liked:

General News: 1st prize stories - Marco Vernaschi, Italy, for Pulitzer
Center
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/inde...y&task=view&id=1724&Itemid=257&bandwidth=high

General News: 3rd prize stories - Meiko Herrmann, Germany
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/inde...y&task=view&id=1722&Itemid=257&bandwidth=high

Contemporary Issues: 3rd prize stories - Tommaso Ausili, Italy, SIME
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/inde...y&task=view&id=1747&Itemid=257&bandwidth=high

Daily Life: 1st prize stories - Gihan Tubbeh, Peru
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/inde...y&task=view&id=1755&Itemid=257&bandwidth=high

Arts and Entertainment: 3rd prize stories - Karla Gachet, Ecuador,
Aurora Photos
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/inde...y&task=view&id=1765&Itemid=257&bandwidth=high

Some nice images:

People in the News: 1st prize stories - Pietro Masturzo, Italy
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/inde...y&task=view&id=1731&Itemid=257&bandwidth=high

Sports Action: 2nd prize stories - Craig Golding, Australia
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/inde...y&task=view&id=1736&Itemid=257&bandwidth=high
 
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