Documentary Award August 2017


  • Winning Photographer Nadir Bucan

    Winning Photographer Nadir Bucan

    A man takes his sheep to the barn near Van, Turkey. January 2013. From the series 'Under the Shadow of the Sun'. Van, located in the eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, emerges as an archaic settlement with its villages, mountains, lakes and islands. Its inhabitants take their strength from this quiet life. When you take steep roads and reach distant mountain villages, a life welcomes you that is unfamiliar to many of us—a life that we haven't seen since childhood, and that we will never see again. This life is the antithesis of the 'techno-life' we live in now, where we are surrounded by objects. - Nadir Bucan © Nadir Bucan – Website
  • Finalist Hakim Boulouiz

    Finalist Hakim Boulouiz

    © Hakim Boulouiz – Website
  • Finalist Ghinwa Daher

    Finalist Ghinwa Daher

    "Chad - on the side of one of the endless highways of Southern Chad, we spot these girls in red, as their colors stood out starkly against the dusty yellow desert. Eager for a taste of fresh camel milk, we pulled up beside them. Our wish for "Halib Jamal" was granted and the white gold was presented to us in a coca cola bottle, as it was morning and they had just been milking their camels." - Ghinwa Daher © Ghinwa Daher – Website
  • Finalist Aaron Anfinson

    Finalist Aaron Anfinson

    "She didn't want her face shown. She didn't know what her employer, her teachers, her parents would do if they knew she was taking part in Hong Kong's push for democracy. As protest leaders are currently being retroactively jailed for their participation in peaceful protests, notions of free speech and political representation in the 'World City' of Hong Kong have never been more contentious." - Aaron Anfinson © Aaron Anfinson – Website
  • Finalist Antony Sojka

    Finalist Antony Sojka

    "Tide is a photo-essay about people living in a very unique place called Halligen, which consists of ten small islands situated in the German North Sea. A Hallig is a very small, flat island with no protective dikes. The salt marsh covers the whole area which is full of small water canals. Population ranges between 2 to 100 inhabitants who have a long family tradition of living there. The main sources of income are tourism, agriculture and coastal protection.Some of the Halligen have their own school, which are Germany's smallest with only a few pupils and large age gaps between them. People are getting older and there isn't enough work or space for the livelihoods of newer generations. Also the houses on the Warften are very expensive and some are in need of renovation and this makes it difficult to find suitable buyers, who also would have to be willing to want to live on the Hallig. It's a very difficult issue and no one is able to say what exactly is going to happen in the future. The only thing sure to come is the next tide." - Antony Sojka © Antony Sojka – Website
  • Finalist Panasann Pattanakulchai

    "Photographs which question the luxury of new high-rise buildings which are mushrooming all over Bangkok, and the tough lives of the workers who built them. The project is realized by juxtaposing images from the advertisements of those high-rise buildings, especially their luxurious interiors, within photographs of construction workers’ temporary destitute shelters." - Panasann Pattanakulchai © Panasann Pattanakulchai – Website
  • Finalist Jean-Claude Moschetti

    The Egungun association is a secret voodoo society which honors spirits of the ancestors and perpetuate their memories. Egungun appears in the streets by day or night, leaping, dancing, or walking and uttering loud cries. He is supposed to have returned from the land of the dead in order to ascertain what is going. He may thus be considered a kind of supernatural inquisitor who appears from time to time to inquire into the general domestic conduct of people, and to punish misdeeds. - Jean-Claude Moschetti © Jean-Claude Moschetti – Website
  • Finalist Mauro De Bettio

    Finalist Mauro De Bettio

    On 9 October 1963, during initial filling, a massive landslide caused a man-made megatsunami in the lake in which 50 million cubic metres of water overtopped the dam in a wave 250 metres (820 ft) high, leading to the complete destruction of several villages and towns, and 1,910 deaths. This is one of the wonderful little everyday-gestures that during all my life I have observed in her. Placida, my grandmother, she was 39 years old way back in '63, when under the wave of the Vajont she lost her husband. A person who, unfortunately, fate has not left the time to let me know. Everyone knew that that piece of mountain would have fall in that artificial lake. But no one expected that the water would sweep away forever an entire village and almost all its inhabitants. A wave that left her, and a handful of souls, completely alone in the world." - Mauro De Bettio © Mauro De Bettio – Website
  • Finalist Sandra Cattaneo Adorno

    "I photograph people close to the underground station as they emerge into the light after having been underground or as they go down into the shadow. In this liminal realm of light and darkness an element of unconscious vulnerability emerges as people adjust to the new light condition. I am intrigued by the way in which the strong light and the contrast transform the features of the people and allow the possibility of narratives being created." - Sandra Cattaneo Adorno © Sandra Cattaneo Adorno – Website
  • Finalist Virginie Terrasse

    A youth not clinging to the earth, cimetery in Tasiilaq - Virginie Terrasse © Virginie Terrasse – Website

Finalists

Jury's Feedback

  • © Björn Steinz

    Judge: Björn Steinz

    Björn Steinz began to photograph at an early age for a local newspaper in his hometown of Oberursel in Germany.

    Working on several long-term projects, Björn’s interest in photography primarily focuses on documentary photography, photojournalism and portraiture. The majority of his projects are within a social content. Over the years Björn has worked multiple times in the Russian Federation, with a particular emphasis on stories related to the extreme conditions during the winter months in the Siberian area of Yakutia.

    Based in Czech Republic Björn teaches Documentary Photography and Visual Culture at the Anglo-American University of Prague. His work has been published by Die Zeit, The Financial Times, Geo, Newsweek, The Open Society Foundations and National Geographic.

    Björn is represented by Panos Pictures, the prestigious London based photo agency specialized in global social issues.

Arun Kumar Nalimela
© Arun Kumar Nalimela

Open to All Photography

Be part of a vibrant community: The competition award is a unique opportunity to gain exposure and provides a platform to celebrate the very best of contemporary photography.

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color street photo of woman and reflexion in shop window by Monaris
© Monaris
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