Birthday, Brais Lorenzo Couto, Efe Agency, Spain
News Photo Awards. A Changing World
The News Photo Awards is an international competition for professional news photographers, which is being held by the TASS Russian News Agency for the second time.
In 2020, the topic of this contest was dedicated to weathering the coronavirus pandemic, under the title of Overcoming COVID. This year, we invite press photographers to show how they see today’s transformed Post-COVID world of ours.
With the planetwide lockdown now mostly over, the globe is still evolving so swiftly and unpredictably that sometimes people simply can’t comprehend or adapt to the events that are unfolding. This goes for not only the pandemic, but also for politics, economics, society, culture and many other spheres that are rapidly shifting and just as rapidly transforming the daily lives of billions worldwide. Thanks to the endeavors of photojournalists all over the world, we can see all these global metamorphoses that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those working on the ‘frontlines’ were the first to pinpoint and forever capture the most interesting things. Photographers caught key moments for the entire globe, with many of them later becoming a crucial feature of world history, by freezing these moments in time for future generations. It is these stories captured by professionals that will convey to us and show us what this changed world looks like in 2021.
Joining the contest is free of charge. Any press photographer working or collaborating with the media can submit an application at the website https://npacontest.com/
Doors will open for applications on October 11 and will last until December 24, 2021. After that, a professional jury, consisting of members of the world's leading media companies, will select the best pictures and decide on the winners. All stages of the competition will be held online, including the collection of applications and voting.
This year, the winners of the competition will be nominated in 4 categories:
• News
• People & Lifestyle
• Нealthcare
• Environment
There will be two nominee categories: one for the Best Single Photo and the other for Best Photo Series. The winners in each category will receive $3,000. The best photo of all sent will be awarded the Grand Prize. The creator of this artwork will receive $10,000.
The results of the contest will be announced in March 2022.
Contest History
The first News Photo Awards competition held by TASS was entitled Overcoming COVID. It was dedicated to weathering the pandemic and spotlighted the significance of photojournalists’ work, highlighting their professional heroism during the pandemic. The idea of tdhe contest was put forward by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during an exclusive interview with TASS in April 2020.
Snapshots for the competition were accepted from October to December 2020, and the winners were named on March 11, 2021 - the anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic announced by the World Health Organization.
About 4,000 images taken by professional press photographers from 84 countries were submitted to compete in the contest. The leading amount of works came from China, India, Malaysia, Iran, Russia, Italy, Turkey, and the United States.
The snapshots were evaluated by a professional jury, consisting of members of the world's leading media companies: Associated Press (USA), Reuters (UK), AFP (France), Xinhua (China), Kyodo News (Japan), TASS (Russia), ANSA (Italy), PA Media (UK), NOOR (Netherlands), Yonhap (South Korea), Anadolu (Turkey).
Brais Lorenzo Couto, a photojournalist from the Spanish international news agency EFE, and his work "Birthday" won the contest’s Grand Prize. The winner of the Best Photo category turned out to be Ilya Pitalev of Russia Today (Sputnik/Russia) for his snapshot dubbed "The Sacrament". Adam Gray, a reporter from a UK-based news agency known as South West News Service (SWNS), emerged as the winner of the Best Photo Series category. The jury recognized his series of images called "In the epicenter of COVID-19" as the best.
The works of the winners of the News Photo Awards. Overcoming COVID was subsequently presented at top business and exhibition events held in Russia throughout the year: the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Eastern Economic Forum, the Moscow Urban Forum, and at the Life with Viruses exhibition at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. They were displayed at street exhibitions and media screens located along the avenues of the Russian capital.
*The decision on the place and format of the award ceremony is made, depending on the epidemiological restrictions at the time winners of the photo contest are slated to be announced.