The winners were announced during Berlin Photo Week in Germany (10 – 14 October) where all 100 finalists were exhibited in Supermarkt, a repurposed supermarket and exhibition space. Pachnanda received a trip to Berlin for the event, as well as a Sony Alpha camera.
As part of the award, Pachnanda will act as the EyeEm ambassador during 2019. Much of his work centres on bold portraits of unusual people, often in urban areas of London. On receiving the Photographer of the Year title, Pachnanda said, “winning an award with so much calibre from an organisation so pivotal to the world of 21st century photography is amazing”.
The EyeEm Awards, run by global community and marketplace for photography EyeEm, currently stands as the world’s largest photography competition. This year marked its fifth edition, and it welcomed a record 700,000 entries from 100,000 photographers, hailing from more than 150 countries across the globe.
Covering nine diverse categories – ranging from ‘The Creative’ to ‘The Great Outdoors’ – the award attracts a huge breadth of subject matter. This year’s winner in ‘The Architect’ category was Simone Hutsch’s surreal image of part of the Vauxhall underground station in London. First place in ‘The Photojournalist’ category, meanwhile, went to Rory Doyle’s portrait of “James, the Smoking Delta Cowboy With a Golden Grill.” What all winning works have in common is that they tell important stories from unique perspectives.
The range of techniques among the winning images was also hugely varied, with artists shooting on a mix of film and digital. ‘The Great Outdoors’ category was won by Matt Horspool, who used a drone to catch his aerial shot of a strange fishing structure in Lake Buyan, Bali. The winning images capture places across the globe; Jakir Hossain Rana’s photograph, winner of ‘The Traveller’ section, captures a train journey from Dhaka Kamalapur to Narsingdi, Bangladesh. Winning photographs from other categories span Russia, the USA and Australia.
The EyeEm Awards is open to photographers of all levels and backgrounds, and is free to enter. This year the judging panel was made up of industry experts such as Nik Shulte, Image Director at High Snobiety; Jose Cabaco, Global Concept and Storytelling Director at Adidas, along with representatives from VII Photo Agency, WeTransfer and more.