MOSCOW, June 3, Rossiya Segodnya Press Service - The winners of the Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest have been announced. Opening the awards ceremony, Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency’s Director General Dmitry Kiselev thanked all the contestants — around 5,000 entries from 54 countries and regions, including Russia, Europe, North and South America, Africa and the Middle East, as well as India and Southeast Asia, were submitted to the contest. The awards ceremony took place at the agency’s International Multimedia Press Center. Organized by Rossiya Segodnya under the auspices of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO, the Andrei Stenin contest is Russia’s largest international competition for young photographers.
The Grand Prix was awarded to Yelena Anosova, a young photographer from Irkutsk, for her Dissociation series. Commenting on the winning entry, jury member Natalya Udartseva (Russia), who is the founder and director of the Visual Arts School, said: “A neutral or almost neutral background, subdued, sort of faded colors allow us to focus on the details – hands, clothing, tattoos, gestures, the faces and eyes of the heroines of Yelena Anosova’s Separation story, to commiserate, to penetrate their world, which is permanently under surveillance. Barbed wire in sharp contrast to bright flowers is a powerful metaphor. It’s not often that we look female convicts in the eye or see the specifics of their daily life. This intensifies the impression.” Timothy Fadek (USA), a jury member, photographer and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, agreed that Anosova’s entry was the most forceful of all the entries and without doubt deserved the Grand Prix.
The contest was held in two stages – the contestants posted their entries online at stenincontest.com and later the jury voted for the best works in four main categories: Breaking News, Contemporary Issues, Sport, and Everyday Life. Special certificates were awarded to the first, second and third place winners from France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Peru, China, Syria, Iran, Israel and Russia. The first prizes in the main categories went to: Corentin Fohlen (France), single entry, The Life of Refugees from Central Africa, and Kristina Brazhnikova (Russia), series, Mother is a Very Special Word, in the Current Issues category; Alexei Loshchilov (Russia), single entry, An Excursion to a Museum, and Yelena Anosova (Russia), series, Dissociation, in the Everyday Life category; Kristina Brazhnikova (Russia), single entry, Training, and Adel Pazyar (Iran), series, Like a Fish, in the Sport category; Katan Hosam (Syria), single entry, A Fighter of the Civil Defense Carrying a Dead Child, and Jonas Wresch (Germany), series, The Terrible Night — Indigenous Resistance in Colombia in the Top News category.
Eleven finalists from Russia, Bangladesh, China and Spain won the Honorable Mention jury award.
The prizewinning entries can be seen at stenincontest.com. An exhibition of the best entries along with some of the press photos made by Andrei Stenin, who was killed while on an editorial assignment, in southeastern Ukraine in August 2014, will be organized at one of Moscow’s exposition venues in September 2015.
The entries that won the highest praise from the jury focus on acute social issues that capture the public’s attention both in Russia and abroad: the life and problems of disabled people, life in penitentiaries, conflicts and human tragedies, and much more. The choice of subjects that interest young photographers attests to the positive changes that are taking and should take place in society thanks to mass media.
The jury of leading Russian and foreign photo and art figures was headed by Jason Eskenazi, a renowned US photographer and Guggenheim Fellowship laureate. Those who selected the winners on June 3, included internationally renowned masters, among them Natalya Udartseva (Russia), the founder and director of the Visual Arts School; Andrei Polikanov (Russia), Visual Director of Takie Dela/So It Goes online media, Nuzhna Pomosch (Help Needed) Charity Foundation; Attila Durak (Turkey), co-founder and curator of the FotoIstanbul festival; Grigory Dukor (Russia), chief photographer, CIS, Reuters Limited Moscow Representative, and others.
List of Winners for The Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest
Grand-Prix
Yelena Anosova (Russia) — Dissociation
Current Issues Category
Single
I place — Corentin Fohlen (France) – A Life of Refuges from CAR
II place — Sergei Orlov (Russia) — Beach
III place — David Martin Huamani Bedoya (Peru) — When the River Sound
Jury Honorable Mention — Maria Plotnikova (Russia) – Library Space Destroyed by Fire
Series
I place — Kristina Brazhnikova (Russia) – Mother is a Very Special Word
II place — Christian Werner (Germany) — Iraq — Sharia, Yazidi Refugees
III place — Alina Inozemtseva (Russia) — Untitled
Jury Honorable Mention — Sergei Kolyaskin (Russia) — Zoo
Jury Honorable Mention — Fyodor Telkov (Russia) — From 36 Views Project
Everyday Life Category
Single
I place — Alexei Loshchilov (Russia) – An Excursion to a Museum
II place — Katan Hosam (Syria) – Pool in Street
III place — Ashraf Amra (Palestine) – The Annual Muslim Hajj
Series
I place — Yelena Anosova (Russia) — Dissociation
II place — Anton Karliner (Russia) – Russian Old Believers
III place — Alessandro Masi (Italy) – Poonam’s Tale of Hope in Bhopal
Jury Honorable Mention — Maria Alekseyeva (Russia) – Witnesses to War
Jury Honorable Mention — Sumon Yusuf (Bangladesh) – Life, Struggle & Water
Sport Category
Single
I place — Kristina Brazhnikova (Russia) – Training
II place — Darya Isayeva (Russia) – When One Step Left
III place — Konstantin Chalabov (Russia) – Daria Shibarova’s Training
Jury Honorable Mention — Alexei Filippov (Russia) – Keep Moving
Series
I place — Adel Pazyar l (Iran) – Like a Fish
II place — Konstantin Chalabov (Russia) – Light and Shade
III place — Daniel Rodrigues (Portugal) – The Spirit of Football is Really Above All
Jury Honorable Mention — Mikhail Domozhilov (Russia) – Ali-Baba
Jury Honorable Mention — Guanguan Liu (China) – Baseball Team
Top News Category
Single
I place — Katan Hosam (Syria) — A Fighter of the Civil Defense Carrying a Dead Child
II place — Corentin Fohlen (France) — Maidan
III place — Guanguan Liu (China) — Yunan Ludian Earth Quack
Jury Honorable Mention — Miguel Candela (Spain) – Peaceful Protester
Series
I place — Jonas Wresch (Germany) — The Terrible Night — Indigenous Resistance in Colombia
II place — Mikhail Mordasov (Russia) — Crimea, a Year after Reunification with Russia
III place — Matic Zorman (Slovenia) — Give me Liberty or give me Death
Jury Honorable Mention — Mikel Oibar (Spain) – Donbass Winter
Jury Honorable Mention — Artur Lebedev (Russia) — Olympic Ceremony Preparations in Sochi-2014
The Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest is being supported by the Xinhua News Agency, the Royal Photographic Society, the Indonesian Press Photo Agency Antara Foto, RT, RBTH (Russia Beyond the Headlines), The Moscow International Centre for Journalism (MICJ), Tutto Digitale Magazine, the Academy of Photography, Vesti.ru online newspaper, Foto&Video magazine, Geophoto.ru agency jourdom.ru portal, Fototehnika portal, the Moscow Union of Journalists, photo-study.ru photography education web site, Russian Photo portal, School of Visual Arts, YOJO.ru web platform for young journalists and Foto.ru club.