AMSTERDAM – Connecting the world to the stories that matter this is the focus of World Press Photo Award 2024the prestigious award which, for almost 70 years, has rewarded the best photojournalism images of the year.
The photos of the 2024 winners, who through their shots tell us about a complex and constantly evolving world, were announced today and will be collected in the volume World Press Photo 2024.
As well as bearing witness to the power and urgency of photojournalism, the winning images are also a reminder of the risks photographers face every day to bring the truth to light. In 2023, in fact, 99 photojournalists they lost their lives while carrying out their work: 92 Palestinians, 2 Israelis and 3 Lebanese.
The images that tell our time
The competition paid off 33 photographers for 32 photojournalistic servicesselected by an independent international jury, out of a total of 61,062 nominated workssent by 3,851 photographers from 130 countries around the world. A mosaic of looks and voices that offer us an overview of the challenges and hopes that characterize our complex times.
Photo of the year 2024: excruciating pain, immense humanity
The photo of the year 2024 is A Palestinian Woman Embraces the Body of Her Niece of the Palestinian photographer Mohammed Salemalready winner of previous editions of the World Press Photo Award.
The picture shows Inas Abu Maamar36 years old, cradling the body of her granddaughter Sally5, killed along with her mother and sister when an Israeli missile hit their home in Khan Younis, Gaza.
Salem describes this photo as a “powerful and sad moment that summarizes the deepest sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip“. The jury awarded the work for its care and respect for the compositiona simultaneously metaphorical and literal visual tale of unimaginable loss.
Story of the year
The photographer Lee-Ann Olwage won the award for Story of the year with his work valim-babenacreated for the magazine GEO. The report explores the stigma affecting people with dementia in Madagascar, where the lack of public awareness about this disease is still widespread.
Motivation of the jury: “This story addresses a universal health issue through the lens of family and care. The selection of images is composed with warmth and tenderness, reminding those who view the images of the love and closeness needed in a time of war and aggression around the world.”.
Long-term project: the two frontiers of migrants
Alejandro Cegarra received the award for Long term project with his work The Two Walls. The report documents the challenges and dangers faced by migrants crossing Mexico on their way to the United States, in the shadow of the country’s increasingly restrictive immigration policies.
Cegarra started this project in 2018. For the jury, the fact that he himself is a migrant gave a sensitive and human-centered perspective, putting theautonomy and resilience of migrants.
World Press Photo Open Format: the war told by a Ukrainian photographer
The prize World Press Photo Open Format was awarded to the Ukrainian photographer Julia Kochetova For War is Personala work that intertwines photos with poems and music, in collaboration with a Ukrainian illustrator and DJ.
Fiona Shieldsresponsible for photography of The Guardian and president of the jury of the World Press Photo Contest 2024, underlines how “All the winning images have the ability to convey a specific moment, but also resonate beyond their subject and time and this is what we hoped to find. Photo of the Year captures this sense of impact: it’s incredibly moving when you look at it and, at the same time, it sparks conversation about peace, which is extremely powerful at a time when peace can sometimes seem like just an unlikely fantasy“.
The World Press Photo 2024 book
In the book of World Press Photo 2024, the photographs, divided by theme, highlight the complexity of photojournalism. In an era where the truth is often questioned, these courageous images offer valuable food for thought, testimony to the importance of documentary photography. The volume is out on May 17th for Marsilio Arte.
World Press Photo 2024
