2014 in pictures: Sony World Photography Awards
- 5 mai 2015
- 5 min de lecture
When it comes to art, I am no good at it, but when it comes to admiring it, you don’t have to ask me twice. So, here I am, in the Sommerset House, at the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition, and after walking around the rooms for around two hours, I can truly say that this exhibition was worth the trip.
If you are in the same place as I was, you might have no idea what I’m talking about, so let me tell you all about it. The Sony World Photography Awards is one of the most important photography competitions in the world. Anyone, of any age or from any country, can enter the contest by presenting their best shots or series of work, whatever their subject is.
The exhibition presented the work from both winners and runner ups from the 13 professional categories, with 10 open categories and the 3 youth categories, on a range of subjects: from travel, to current affairs, sport, people or even smiling. Along with that, there was a room to represent the work of the winner of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award and the winner of the Iris d’Or.
The Outstanding Contribution to Photography was won by Elliott Erwitt, an American commercial and documentary photographer. He is known for his black and white pictures, and his special touch of ironic humour.
I didn’t know this photographer or his art, but I fell in love with some of his work. Firstly I really enjoy the black and white concept, and he uses it to perfection. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy pictures with colours and effects, but I think that using black and white is a way to ensure that the public is not going to get distracted from the main objective. No pretty colours, no amazing fade, just a pure and simple picture.
Indeed his pictures can seem pretty ordinary because they are enspired from everyday life, but it brings out a sort of beauty and poetry into his imagery. It is the kind of pictures that people can relate to because they are so common, but at the same time it shows the viewer that beauty can be found in the simplest things, you just have to look for it.
L’Iris d’Or was won by John Moore, an American photographer, with his work “Ebola Crisis Overwhelms Liberian Capital”. This series of shots is really powerful because it shows the hard reality of the disease and the devastation it caused, plainly and truly.
While number of pictures shown on TV or published in Newspapers focused on the dead bodies or on people in quarantine, I believe that John Moore tried to show another side of this tragedy through his work.
His pictures seem to be from the inside, like he put himself in a Liberian’s shoes and took pictures of this new vision. For example, he does not show the quarantine tents, like he cannot go their, but he sees everything outside, the life in a city trying to survive. He sees the misery everywhere around him, as well as the struggle of families, the sadness in the people’s eyes, the fear in each of them; and that is what makes it so powerful.
On TV, a number of programs showed death, and even if it is powerful, it is not as powerful as showing the people that are left behind. It is not just dead bodies, it is a whole community suffering and in grief; and that is why I thought this documentary shots were so powerful and deserved to win this prize.
The professional Categories
“Shoot ball, not gun” is a series of three shots by French photographer and winner of the campaign category, Sebastian Gil Miranda. These shots show some young boys playing football and although I liked the pictures, it was after I read the story behind it, that it truly made sense to me, and that I found them really touching.
This documentary work is part of a social project aiming to help young people from La Cárcova, one of the most dangerous quarters of Buenos Aires. The neighbourhood is caught in the middle of a battle between two drug gangs, and most of the children are linked to these gangs through their families. To escape this reality for a little bit, and to give them other options for their future, this youth centre offer them to shoot the ball inside while shotguns reside outside.
“Then the sky crashed down upon us” is a black and white series of pictures by Annalisa Natali Murri, from Italy, who obtained the third place in the contemporary issues category with her work.
The shots picture some survivors of the Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh in April 2014, but even if they are not on the scene of the disaster anymore, the aftereffects are still prevelant. Showing pictures of the disaster faded under the portraits of the survivors which allow the viewer to understand that the survivors are still living in fear, and that their lives have been completely changed by the event and the shots capture that to perfection.
“Amazon of the north” is a series of three landscape shots by German photographer Rudi Sebastian. I like those because they are just peaceful, and show nature in its simplest form, untouched by humans.
The Open Categories
There was one entire category that I really appericated: the smile category. Just the fact that they had one made me happy. Smiling is just simple, pure and it is the most beautiful face a person can make, especially if it’s a genuine smile; so these pictures are all genuinely pretty for me.
Photographs by Umair Wadwood (left) and Wilson Lee (right)
Another of my favourite picture from this category is the ballerina girl by Nenad Martie,I don’t have a particular reason for liking it, I just like the idea of the frame with the ballerina centered in it, giving it the elsuion of a picture within a picture.
The youth categories
I just like the youth categories, because the sensitivity is not the same as an adult or a professional photographer. Young people tend to idealise the world, and it is always reflected in their pictures. But at the same time, when they are in the middle of a conflict, they perceive it in a different manner, and I believe that the result can be really touching. So, here are some of my favourites pictures from the youth categories.
Marek Jarkovsky’s winner for the Czech Republic
Indonesia’s winner Andrew Suryono
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