A Danish photographer won the 2014 World Press Photo of the Year award, but over 20 percent of images were rejected due to excessive digital manipulation.
Danish photographer Mads Nissen has won the World Press Photo of the Year award for 2014 with his image of two gay Russian men embracing. The image focuses attention on the struggles of gays and lesbians in the current Russian political and social climate.
But the award was made amidst a decision by the organisers to reject 20 percent of submitted images in the penultimate round because the pictures had been digitally enhanced to an excessive degree. All participants were required to enter files as captured by the camera for all the images proceeding into the final stages of the contest.
Bulent Kilic, an AFP photographer based in Istanbul, took out both first and third prize in the Spot News category, Single Images, with a picture of a wounded young girl which was taken in the aftermath of a clash with riot police in Turkey, and another image of the moment of an air strike explosion against Islamic State fighters on a Syrian hill in October last year.
Jury chairwoman Michele McNally said Mads Nissen’s image represented an historic time. She said the photo was aesthetically powerful, and it had humanity. Nissan is a staff photographer for the Danish daily newspaper Politiken. His image shows the two men during an intimate moment in St. Petersburg, Russia. Sexual minorities face legal and social discrimination in Russia currently, as well as hate-crime violence. Nissen’s photo also won first prize in the Contemporary Issues category.
Also among the category winners are Australian-based photographers, Mark Metcalfe and Raphaela Rosella, who received honours in the Sports and Portraits categories, respectively. Metcalfe received third prize in the Sports Single Image category for his shot of cricketer Philip Hughes laying on the SCG pitch surrounded by teammates after he was hit by a cricket ball and Rosella’s Portrait image (first prize in the Single Image category) was of a young girl awaiting a ride to Sunday school in her suburban driveway.
World Press Photo Managing Director Lars Boering said the awards jury was “very disappointed to discover how careless some photographers had been in post-processing their files for the contest.” He went on, “When this meant a material addition or subtraction to the content of the image, it led to the images being rejected. We believe there were no attempts to deceive or mislead, but our independent experts found anomalies in a large number of files and presented their findings to the jury."
He continued, "According to the contest rules only retouching that conforms to currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed, and the jury is the ultimate arbiter of these standards. It seems some photographers can’t resist the temptation to aesthetically enhance their images during post-production.” Boering said that over coming months the award organisers would be engaging further with the international photojournalistic community about acceptable standards of manipulation, and that the issue was “a great concern”.
A total of 97,912 images were submitted by 5,692 press photographers, photojournalists, and documentary photographers from 131 countries. The jury gave prizes in eight themed categories to 42 photographers of 17 nationalities from: Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, China, Denmark, Eritrea, France, Germany, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, UK and USA.
For a full list of winners, click here: http://www.worldpressphoto.org/2015-photo-contest/winners-list
Dane Mads Nissen has won the World Press Photo of the Year award with his image of two gay Russian men . The image focuses attention on the struggles of gays and lesbians in the current Russian political and social climate.
Bulent Kilic, an AFP photographer based in Istanbul, took out both first and third prize in the Spot News category, Single Images, with a picture of a wounded young girl, as well as an image of an attack on ISIL.
Raphaela Rosella’s Portrait image (first prize in the Single Image category) was of a young girl awaiting a ride to Sunday school in her suburban driveway.