Amsterdam — Sudanese photographer Faiz Abubakr Mohamed has been named as the winner in the ‘singles’ category for Africa, at the regional stage of the prestigious 2022 World Press Photo Contest. Mohamed’s winning picture shows a woman protestor hurling a teargas cannister back at riot police during the pro-democracy protests in 2021.
The World Press Photo Contest, based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, recognises and celebrates the best photojournalism and documentary photography of the previous year. This year the winners were chosen out of 64,823 photographs and open format entries, by 4,066 photographers from 130 countries.
Previously, an image by Japanese Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba of a young man, illuminated by mobile phones, reciting protest poetry while demonstrators chant slogans calling for civilian rule during a blackout in Khartoum on June 19 2019, was named as World Press Photo of the Year 2020.
World Press Photo of the Year 2020: Straight Voice – A young man, illuminated by mobile phones, recites protest poetry while demonstrators
chant slogans calling for civilian rule, during a blackout in Khartoum, Sudan, on 19 June 2019 (Yasuyoshi Chiba, Japan, AFP)
The 65th Contest followed a new regional strategy, independent specialised regional and global juries decided on the 2022 regional winners, for each of the four categories; Singles, Stories, Long-Term Projects, and Open Format.
Reflecting on this year’s contest, Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo Foundation says: “It is exhilarating to see the way in which the new regional contest set up has produced the changes that we were hoping for. Changes that we believe will offer different perspectives on, and a deeper connection to, photojournalism and documentary photography from all over the world.”
Every regional winner of the contest receives a monetary prize of €1,000, inclusion in the annual worldwide exhibition, inclusion in the annual yearbook, publication and a personal profile on the World Press Photo website, promotion on World Press Photo platforms, an invitation to the Winners’ Program, and a physical award.
Judging of the 2022 World Press Photo Contest took place from 17 January to 2 March 2022. It involved regional juries and a global jury, convening online and offline, the latter courtesy of our partner hotel De L’Europe in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The regional juries first made a selection of entries per category in their regions, after which the global jury decided on the regional winners, and from those, the global winners.
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Azerbaijani photographer Rena Effendi, global jury chair, said: “The new contest model pushed us out of our comfort zone to think outside the box. Each jury member brought along their expertise on relevant issues of their respective regions, and we built on this knowledge as a team. The resulting selection of winners reflects upon the state of the world from a deeper and more nuanced vantage point.”
The global winners of the 2022 Contest will be announced on 7 April. The World Press Photo Exhibition 2022 will premiere at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 15 April before starting its global tour. Upcoming exhibitions are confirmed and added to the calendar throughout the year. The 2021 Exhibition was shown at 66 locations in 29 countries.
World Press Photo Yearbook 2022
The newly redesigned World Press Photo Yearbook 2022 showcases the prize-winning images, stories and productions from the Contest. The Yearbook contains in-depth essays and a jury report for context and reflection. The book will be published in six languages and will be available from early May.
Winners’ Programme
To celebrate the awarded stories and winners, the World Press Photo Foundation will organise a Winners’ Programme in Amsterdam this year. In addition to the awards celebration, the program will consist of networking and press events, presentations, lectures and a tour of the flagship World Press Photo Exhibition in De Nieuwe Kerk.