Photojournalist Valery Melnikov of the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency has won the intarget Photolux Award 2019 for his project - "Gray Zone" - about life along the contact line in conflict-torn Donbas
ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th October, 2019) Photojournalist Valery Melnikov of the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency has won the intarget Photolux Award 2019 for his project - "Gray Zone" - about life along the contact line in conflict-torn Donbas.Melnikov will be awarded the Grand Prix at the biennial international Photolux Festival, which will be held in the Italian city of Lucca from November 16 to December 8.
"I am pleased to be among the winners of the Photolux Award. Thanks to this, the project 'Gray Zone' will be displayed in Italy; and the festival's participants as well as ordinary residents will have the opportunity to see it. It is very important," Melnikov said.
He noted that it was his third big project dedicated to the events in Donbas. The previous two were series of photos "Black Days of Ukraine" and "Underground," with the latter telling about residents hiding in the basements of their destroyed houses caught up in the hostilities.
"A gray zone is not only a territory, it is about feelings of a person immersed in the darkness of the unknown in the face of war. This is a state of existential loneliness of a person who has lost hope," the photojournalist said, reflecting on his latest project.
Melnikov is a laureate of various international awards, including World Press Photo, the most prestigious photography award in the world.
Photolux Festival has been held in Lucca since 2013.
