The 2017 World Press Photo Contest winners are announced
The contest attracted 80,408 images, from 5034 photographers from 125 countries, and the jury gave prizes in eight categories to 45 photographers from 25 countries – Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Italy, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Syria, New Zealand, Turkey, UK, USA.
The World Press Photo of the Year is a shot by Turkish Associated Press photographer called Burhan Ozbilici, with an image he has simply titled An Assassination in Turkey. Showing Mevlut Mert Altintas shouting after shooting Andrei Karlov, right, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, at an art gallery in Ankara, Turkey, on 19 December 2016, the image is drawn from a wider series shot that night which won first place in the Spot News – Stories category.
Other notable wins include Thomson Reuters photographer Jonathan Bachman’s photograph of 28-year-old nurse Ieshia Evans, standing in front of riot police during a protest against police brutality outside the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana, USA, on 9 July 2016, which one first prize in the Contemporary Issues – Singles category. The first prize for Contemporary Issues – Stories also went to a series showing protestors and riot police in the US – Amber Bracken’s story on the opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Paula Bronstein won first prize in the Daily Life – Singles category with an image showing a woman called Najiba holding her two-year-old nephew Shabir, who was injured from a bomb blast in Kabul on 29 March 2016. First prize in Daily Life – Stories went to Tomas Munita, with a series of images showing Cuba On The Edge Of Change.
First prize, General News – Singles went to Laurent Van der Stockt for an image showing the Iraqi Special Operations Forces searching houses in Gogjali, an eastern district of Mosul, on 2 November 2016. First prize, General News – Stories went to Daniel Berehulak, for a story shot for The New York Times called They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals, a study of the anti-drug campaign started by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines when he took office on 30 June 2016, which has seen more than 2000 people have been slain at the hands of the police alone.
The contest has specialist juries for news and documentary, sports, nature, and people; the winning images are finally selected by a general jury which combines the chairs of the specialist juries plus, this year: Mary F. Calvert, USA, independent photojournalist; Kelli Reed Grant, USA, photography director Yahoo News; Eman Mohammed, Palestine, photographer and multimedia photojournalist; Aïda Muluneh, Ethiopia, managing director Desta For Africa Creative Consulting PLC; João Silva, Portugal/South Africa, staff photographer The New York Times; Wim van Sinderen, the Netherlands, senior curator The Hague Museum of Photography; Goran Tomasevic, Serbia, chief photographer East Africa Reuters; Christian Ziegler, Germany, photographer. The chair of the jury this year was Magnum Photos photographer Stuart Franklin.
To see more of the winning images, visit the World Press Photo site.
Diane Smyth is the editor of BJP, returning for a second stint on staff in 2023 - after 15 years on the team until 2019. As a freelancer, she has written for The Guardian, FT Weekend Magazine, Creative Review, Aperture, FOAM, Aesthetica and Apollo. She has also curated exhibitions for institutions such as The Photographers Gallery and Lianzhou Foto Festival. You can follow her on instagram @dismy