Winners of the 56th annual World Press Photo awards have been announced with the international jury presenting the coveted Photo of the Year award to Swedish photographer Paul Hansen.
The international awards are open to all professional press photographers, photojournalists and documentary photographers. This year the awards attracted 103,481 images from 5,666 photographers representing 124 countries.
Hansen's photo, taken on assignment for Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, shows a group of mourners carrying the bodies of two dead children, killed in an airstrike, through a Gaza City street. They are being taken to a mosque for the burial ceremony while their father’s body is carried behind on a stretcher. The image was captured on 20 November 2012 in Gaza City, Palestinian Territories.
“The strength of the picture lies in the way it contrasts the anger and sorrow of the adults with the innocence of the children. It’s a picture I will not forget,” said World Press Photo jury member Mayu Mohanna.
Prizes in the 2013 competition were awarded in nine themed categories to 54 photographers. Two Australian photographers were recognised – Daniel Berehulak who took third prize in the General News Stories category for his image 'Japan After the Wave', and Chris McGrath, who won third prize in the Sports Action category for his 'bird's eye' coverage of the London 2012 Olympics. Both photographers are represented by Getty Images.
A selection of winning images from the the 2013 World Press Photo awards is published below.
Gaza Burial, Gaza City, Palestinian Territories, 20 November 2012: Two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and his older brother Muhammad were killed when their house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike. Their father Fouad was also killed and their mother was put in intensive care. Fouad’s brothers carry his children to the mosque for the burial ceremony as his body is carried behind on a stretcher. (World Press Photo of the Year, Spot News, 1st prize singles, Paul Hansen, Sweden, Dagens Nyheter.)
'Japan After the Wave', Ishinomaki, Japan, 2 March 2012,: People walk down a road in a neighborhood ravaged by the tsunami. One year later, areas of Japan most impacted by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that left 15,848 dead and 3,305 missing, continue to struggle. Thousands of people remain living in temporary dwellings. The government faces an uphill battle with the need to dispose of rubble as it works to rebuild economies and livelihoods. (General News, 3rd prize stories, Daniel Berehulak, Australia, Getty Images.)
At the Dandora Dump, Nairobi, Kenya, 3 April 2012: Pausing in the rain, a woman working as a trash picker at the 30-acre dump, which literally spills into households of one million people living in nearby slums, wishes she had more time to look at the books she comes across. She even likes the industrial parts catalogs. “It gives me something else to do in the day besides picking [trash],” she said. (Contemporary Issues, 1st prize singles, Micah Albert, USA, Redux Pictures.)
Emperor Penguins, Ross Sea, Antarctica, 19 November 2011: New
science shows that Emperor Penguins are capable of tripling their
swimming speed by releasing millions of bubbles from their feathers.
These bubbles reduce the friction between their feathers and the icy
seawater, allowing them to accelerate in the water. They use speeds of
up to 30 kilometers per hour to avoid leopard seals and to launch
themselves up onto the ice. (Nature, 1st prize stories, Paul Nicklen, Canada, National Geographic magazine.)
Joy at the End of the Run, Batu Sangkar, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 12 February 2012: A jockey, his feet stepped into a harness strapped to the bulls and clutching their tails, shows relief and joy at the end of a dangerous run across rice fields. The Pacu Jawi (bull race) is a popular competition at the end of harvest season keenly contested between villages. (Sports Action, 1st prize singles, Wei Seng Chen, Malaysia.)
'I Just Want to Dunk', Mogadishu, Somalia, 21 February 2012: The
Somali basketball association pays armed guards to watch over and
protect Suweys and her team when they play. In Mogadishu, the war-torn
capital of Somalia, young women risk their lives to play basketball.
Suweys, the 19-year-old captain of a women's basketball team, and her
friends defy radical Islamist views on women’s rights. They have
received many death threats from not only al-Shabaab militias and
radical Islamists, but some male members of their own families. " I just
want to dunk," said Suweys. It is on the basketball court she feels
happiest. "Basketball makes me forget all my problems.” (Sports Feature, 1st prize stories, Jan Grarup, Denmark, Laif.)
Football in Guinea-Bissau, Dulombi, Guinea Bissau, 3 March 2012:
Many young football players around the world touch their first ball on a
field of bare dirt. Here a youth group plays on a 'football field' that
was the site of military barracks and fields of the former Portuguese
colonies in the country. (Daily Life, 1st prize singles, Daniel
Rodrigues, Portugal.)
London 2012 - An Overview, London, UK, 5 August 2012: Andrea Baldini of Italy celebrates defeating Yuki Ota of Japan to win the gold medal match 45-39 in the Men's Foil Team Fencing finals. One of a series of 'bird’s eye view' images from the London 2012 Summer Olympics. (Sports Action, 3rd prize stories, Chris McGrath, Australia, Getty Images.)