Russian photographer Mary Gelman and Turkish reporter Sebnem Coskun on Monday were announced Grand Prix winners of the Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest of 2021
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th October, 2021) Russian photographer Mary Gelman and Turkish reporter Sebnem Coskun on Monday were announced Grand Prix winners of the Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest of 2021.
The announcement for the highest awards and prizes for shortlisted candidates took place during an online ceremony in the Rossiya Segodnya Multimedia Press Center, the organizer of the competition.
Gelman presented her "М+T" photo series, depicting the touching love story of an elderly couple with Down syndrome living in the Svetlana social village, located 87 miles from St. Petersburg and hosting those with special needs or disabilities. The photographer worked on the series for over a year.
"For me, taking part in the Stenin Contest means an opportunity to draw the attention of the public to the social theme in my research and share my vision; it means an opportunity for dialogue. Every year I send my works to this contest with a professional international jury because it is an excellent platform for speech, considerable financial support for young photographers, and a high-quality approach to exhibiting the winners," Gelman said.
Another winning piece was Coskun's single photo "New danger to life below water: COVID-19 waste," showing free-diver Sahika Ercumen, a participant in the UN Underwater Development Program, diving into the Bosphorus.
"It was my goal to express my opinion and point out the problem. For many years I have been working on marine pollution with plastic waste and microplastics. Even before the pandemic, we could not cope with the huge volume of plastic in our ecosystem, and it has only existed for 60 or 70 years. The photo was taken in the Bosphorus. I was going to look for trash during the dive. But there was no need to look for it � it was everywhere," Coskun said.
The Top news category saw two winners, namely "The human cost of COVID-19" by Indonesian photojournalist Joshua Irwandi, and "Dissent" by Indian photographer Chandan Khanna about the Black Lives Matter protests in the US city of Minneapolis last year.
The best single photo in the My Planet category was an intricate photographic pattern from the 2020 Vasaloppet China cross-country ski race by Chinese photojournalist Chang Xu. The best photo series of this category was won by "Locust invasion in East Africa," a documentary about an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe of the last 25 years, by Spanish photographer Luis Tato, who won in the contest several times in the past, including the 2020 Grand Prix.
"Parkour on rubble", by Syrian reporter Mouneb Taim, was chosen the best single photo in the sports category, while "Home Olympics," a remote photo session of athletes training for the Olympic Games despite the coronavirus lockdown in summer 2020, shot by Russian photographer Darya Isayeva, won best series in the same category.
"The Portrait: A Hero of Our Time" category was won by photojournalists from Russia and India, with the best single photo given to "Faces of the times" by Russia's Sergei Bobylyov, honoring doctors during the coronavirus pandemic. The best story in the series was the black-and-white photo essay "Kashmir: A disputed legacy" by independent Indian photographer Sharafat Ali.
The full list of the 2021 contest winners is published on the competition's website.
This year, the contest set prizes for participants in such categories as Top News, My Planet, and Portrait: A Hero of Our Time. Leading international media, such as the Shanghai United Media Group and the pan-Arab media holding Al Mayadeen tv, as well as one of the world's largest humanitarian organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, are these categories' partners.
The partners selected� Irwandi's photo "The human cost of COVID-19" and the series "Europe's Bleeding Wound" by Alexander Yermochenko as the best photos. They are noted by the International Committee of the Red Cross' special prize For Humanitarian Photography in the Top News category.
"There is glory in prevention," a series of portraits of doctors combating COVID-19 by Patrick Junker, was awarded a special prize by Al Mayadeen TV's special prize in the Portrait: Hero of Our Time category. The "Locust invasion in East Africa" documentary by Tato received high praise from the Shanghai United Media Group in the My Planet category.
"Photography is the most sincere, conservative art form of our time. To photograph war or civil conflict, you need to get close to the protagonist. This is how Andrei Stenin found himself in almost every hotspot in the world," Rossiya Segodnya Director General Dmitry Kiselev said, commenting on the results of the competition.
The Andrei Stenin International Photo Contest is named after Rossiya Segodnya photo correspondent Andrei Stenin, who was killed while covering the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
