World Press Photo of the Year
The First Embrace
Mads Nissen, Denmark, Politiken/Panos Pictures
The independent jury of the 2021 Photo Contest selected Mads Nissen’s photograph The First Embrace as the World Press Photo of the Year. In the winning image, Rosa Luzia Lunardi (85) is embraced by nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza, at Viva Bem care home, São Paulo, Brazil, on 5 August 2020.
Nissen said about his image: “To me, this is a story about hope and love in the most difficult times. When I learned about the crisis that was unfolding in Brazil and the poor leadership of president Bolsonaro who has been neglecting this virus from the very beginning, who’s been calling it ‘a small flu,’ I really felt an urge to do something about it.”
Kevin WY Lee, photographer, creative director and 2021 Photo Contest jury member describes the winning photograph: “This iconic image of COVID-19 memorializes the most extraordinary moment of our lives, everywhere. I read vulnerability, loved ones, loss and separation, demise, but, importantly, also survival—all rolled into one graphic image. If you look at the image long enough, you’ll see wings: a symbol of flight and hope.”
Mads Nissen is a Danish photographer based in Copenhagen. After graduating in 2007 from The Danish School of Journalism he moved to Shanghai to document the human and social consequences of China’s historic economic rise. Since 2014 he has worked as a staff photographer at the Danish daily Politiken.
World Press Photo Story of the Year
Habibi
Antonio Faccilongo, Getty Reportage
The jury chose Habibi by Antonio Faccilongo as the World Press Photo Story of the Year. The winning series chronicles love stories set against the backdrop of one of the longest and most complicated contemporary conflicts, the Israeli-Palestinian war. The story shows the impact of the conflict on Palestinian families, and the difficulties they face in preserving their reproductive rights and human dignity.
Faccilongo says about the winning story: “My work has the ambition to be a cultural bridge to bring people together.”
“This year we wanted to try to find something that was digging deep; that was looking at the past, at the present, but somehow also at the future,” says NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, co-founder and director of photo.circle and 2021 Photo Contest Jury Chair about judging the World Press Photo Story of the Year.
Ahmed Najm, Managing Director of Metrography Agency and 2021 Photo Contest jury member, says about the story: “The photojournalistic perspective of the photographer, along with the uniqueness of the story, have created a masterpiece. This is a story of human struggle in the 21st century: a story about those unheard voices that can reach the world if we, the jury, act as a medium. It shows another side of the long contemporary conflict between Israel and Palestine.”
Antonio Faccilongo is an Italian documentary photographer represented by Getty Reportage. He currently works as a photography professor at the Rome University of Fine Arts and the American University of Rome. In his work documenting the aftermath of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Faccilongo sought to unveil and highlight the humanitarian issues related to one of the world’s most reported conflicts, often shown only as a place of war and conflict.
World Press Photo Interactive of the Year
Reconstructing Seven Days of Protests in Minneapolis After George Floyd’s Death
Holly Bailey/The Washington Post and Matt Daniels, Amelia Wattenberger/The Pudding
The independent jury of the 2021 Digital Storytelling Contest selected Reconstructing Seven Days of Protests in Minneapolis After George Floyd’s Death by Holly Bailey/The Washington Post and Matt Daniels, Amelia Wattenberger/The Pudding, as the World Press Photo Interactive of the Year.
Reconstructing Seven Days of Protests in Minneapolis After George Floyd’s Death provides a full picture of the first week of protests in Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The piece makes unprecedented use of user-generated content and combines and maps out 147 live stream videos.
“A lot of clips were floating around social media and just the media at large, and the thought was: how can we create greater context for all that is happening? We haven’t had this rich amount of data for events in the past, so we wanted to do something to bring them to life and give readers a sense of what it was like, to actually be part of the protests,” says Amelia Wattenberger, graphics developer at The Pudding.
“This should be a model of what you can do with social media. I think it told the truth in a way that was easy for readers to understand,” adds Holly Bailey, writer at The Washington Post.
The World Press Photo Interactive of the Year award celebrates the production that creates engaging interactive storytelling through skillful editing and design and effective synergy of form and content.
Muyi Xiao, reporter and video producer in The New York Times Visual Investigations team and 2021 Digital Storytelling Contest jury chair, says about the production: “It shows that the situation was more complicated and nuanced than people initially understood. What stands out the most is how they utilize user-generated content to provide accountability. The approach is innovative.”
Fábio Erdos, filmmaker and photographer and 2021 Digital Storytelling jury member, notes: “Through this content collection the audience can dive deep into the protesters emotions, feelings, actions. It also takes us to witness the reactions from the police and from the local government.”
World Press Photo Online Video of the Year
Calling Back from Wuhan
Yang Shenlai/Tang Xiaolan
The jury chose Calling Back From Wuhan by Yang Shenlai/ Tang Xiaolan as the World Press Photo Online Video of the Year. Told through a series of recorded phone conversations, Calling Back From Wuhan gives an account of one family at the first epicenter of COVID-19. In February 2020, just days after losing both of his parents to the virus, Weng Jiang and his wife also became infected.
The World Press Photo Online Video of the Year award celebrates a video produced for the web, which through skillful editing and audio-visual design tells a compelling story with an impact.
“Intentional visuals with thoughtful sound design, well-structured narratives, diversity of themes. They are all aspects that we were really reflecting on,” says Fábio Erdos, filmmaker, photographer and 2021 Digital Storytelling jury member about selecting the World Press Photo Online Video of the Year.
About the winning production, Sanchai Chotirosseranee, deputy director, Film Archive and 2021 Digital Storytelling jury member remarks: “The story is quite complete in itself, it feels that they told not only trauma but the story around it, connecting with others and from that, you can see the big picture as well.”
World Press Photo Festival 2021
The Awards Show was part of the online World Press Photo Festival, taking place from 15-17 April 2021. The three-day program will take place in a digital forum, including the Awards show, presentations and dialogue.
See the program and meet the speakers here. Attendance is free but sessions have limited capacity. Some sessions will become available online after the event.
