9 Award-Winning Photographs from the Month of March
In the wake of the fall of Kabul, Afghan women, young and old, share stories of loss and courage. A woman on the Greek Island of Evia stands at the epicenter of devastating wildfires, fueled by climate change. In Lebanon, the photographer Rania Matar collaborates with a rising generation of women, highlighting resilience in the face of unrest.
These are just a sampling of the photographs recognized as part of international awards and competitions last month. Featuring longstanding photojournalism awards to colorful mobile photography competitions–and everything in between–this edition of our award-winners roundup provides an inside look at what photo editors, publishers, curators, and leading brands are talking about right now.
Farah, Aabey, Lebanon, 2020 (part of the series "Where Do I go" لوين روح). Farah was part of the young generation who had been protesting in Lebanon, during the popular uprising that had started in October of 2019, demanding to get rid of the corrupt government. There were factions trying to undermine the protests, and they burned Farah's car. We collaborated to portray the moment, immortalizing the car before it went to the dump. It was an act of resistance. © Rania Matar.
Rania Matar, Rosem Morton, and September Bottoms win the 3rd Annual Leica Women Foto Project Award
Rania Matar, Rosem Morton, and September Bottoms are the three recipients of the Leica Women Foto Project Award, with each receiving $10,000, Leica gear, and a four-week photography exhibition at Fotografiska New York. Rania Matar’s winning project, Where Do I Go? tells the stories of the younger generation of women in Lebanon.
“The past two years have been extremely difficult in Lebanon, starting with the 2019 uprising protesting corruption and inflation, to the coronavirus and months of lockdown that proved disastrous for the country, and finally to the August 4, 2020 Port of Beirut explosions, that caused further catastrophic damage,” she writes. “Instead of focusing on destruction, I found myself in awe of [these women], their creativity, strength, beauty, and resilience, despite all.”
Wildflower by Rosem Morton documents and bears witness to the artist’s experience with victim shaming and blame in the wake of sexual assault. Remember September is September Bottoms’s photographic memoir exploring her family, intergenerational trauma, and femininity.
Photo of the Year 2022 & Single News 1st Prize, Konstantinos Tsakalidis / Bloomberg / Greece Kritsiopi Panayiota, 81, reacts as a wildfire approaches her house in the village of Gouves on Evia Island, Greece on Aug. 8, 2021. Following a long heat wave, the hottest Greece has seen in 30 years, thousands of residents were evacuated by boat after wildfires hit Greece’s second-largest island.
Konstantinos Tsakalidis wins Photo of the Year at the Istanbul Photo Awards
Bloomberg photographer Konstantinos Tsakalidis has won the Photo of the Year award at the Istanbul Photo Awards, organized by Anadolu Agency, for his portrait of a woman from Evia Island in Greece, as wildfires raged and residents were evacuated. As this year’s laureate, he receives $6,000.
The woman in the photograph, Kritsiopi Panayiota, was shouting toward her house, as her husband was still in their backyard. Tsakalidis says, “I think that this image describes in the best way the despair and sadness of the local people of Evia Island about the destruction of the natural environment as well as the negligence of the state in extinguishing the fire in its beginning.”