World Press Photo Releases 2005 Winners

I've always recognized photojournalism as an artform and have always wanted to be a photojournalist since I was sixteen heee :) I only got my first camera, a Nikon FM 10 when I was eighteen and experimented with my best friend for nude photos then eventually overexposed photographs of streetchildren Ive worked with I dont know if I will ever be good as these photojournalists... sigh ... Anyway, view the winning photos for this year here. Also, don't miss the World Press Photo Exhibit at the Ayala Museum this May.

Photographer Finbarr O’Reilly wins premier award

The international jury of the 49th annual World Press Photo contest selected a color image of the Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly of Reuters as World Press Photo of the Year 2005. The picture shows the emaciated fingers of a one-year-old child pressed against the lips of his mother at an emergency feeding clinic in Niger. A devastating swarm of locusts and the worst drought in decades left millions of people short of food in the African state. The picture was taken in Tahoua, northwestern Niger, on 1 August 2005.

World Press Photo jury chairman James Colton described the winning image: "This picture has haunted me ever since I first saw it two weeks ago. It has stayed in my head, even after seeing all the thousands of others during the competition. This image has everything - beauty, horror and despair. It is simple, elegant and moving."

text sourced from www.worldpressphoto.com; photo sourced from www.reuters.com


Greenpeace wins World Press Photo award for effects of climate change and nuclear power,- no prizes for those who cause them

Amsterdam, 10 February 2006 -- Greenpeace International has won two prizes at the prestigious World Press Photo awards for images depicting the drought in the Amazon last year and the lingering effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.The awards come on the day that scientists revealed the climate is at its warmest in the Northern hemisphere for more than 1,200 years (1) and just two months before the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl explosion. The photographs are a timely reminder of the failure of governments and corporations to act in the past, and the job still to be done to stop dangerous climate change and the ugly reality of nuclear power. "There are no prizes for those who made these photographs a reality," said International Executive Director Gerd Leipold. "The images are a graphic warning of the consequences of the global obsession with dirty energy at the expense of communities and the environment." The photographs were taken by Greenpeace commissioned photographers Daniel Beltra and Robert Knoth."The pictures are all the more powerful, not just because of their quality, but also because of the message they send. They are a view of the present, but also a glimpse of what the future might look like unless action is taken now," said Greenpeace International photo editor John Novis.

NOTES:(1)The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years -Timothy J. Osborn and Keith R. Briffa; Science 10 February 2006

Greenpeace demands Governments and corporations invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency and massively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, to combat dangerous climate change.

April 26th is the 20th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident, at Chernobyl.An exhibition of Robert's portraits of nuclear devastation in the former Soviet Union will be launched internationally in April.

Robert Knoth won an 'Honourable Mention' - Link to Photo

Daniel Beltra won 3rd Prize in the Nature category. - Link to Photo

For more information please contact:Sara Holden, Greenpeace International Communications, Amsterdam +31 615 007 406John Novis, Greenpeace International Photo editor - in Beijing, China: +86 139 100 98563