Haiyan photograph wins at World Press Photo

MANILA, Philippines – Philippe Lopez’s image of typhoon Haiyan survivors carrying religious icons in a procession in the Philippines won on Friday, February 14, the coveted 1st Prize Spot News Single in the annual World Press Photo.

The photograph, with a devastated landscape as its backdrop, had already been chosen by Time magazine as one of the top 10 images of 2013.

The World Press Photo jury of photography professionals, presided over by VII Agency founder photographer Gary Knight, spent the last two weeks judging photos in Amsterdam.

Asia specialist Lopez, a French national, joined Agence France-Presse’s Phnom Penh bureau in 2000 and is currently a staff photographer at the agency’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong.

“This photograph sums up the faith of a people who continue to move forward despite the scale of the disaster,” Lopez said. “I am delighted that the jury chose this image of hope.”

Lopez wrote about his experience taking the photograph in his AFP blog entry, saying he never found out the specifics behind the procession, as “it seemed impolite and inapproriate to interrupt to ask.”

“Because of the smoke rising from the destruction, the sky seemed to mingle with the earth,” he wrote. “I positioned myself so I could take advantage if this strange light and chose a very small depth of field, framing the woman in the foreground. I had to run alongside the group to be able to frame her in profile while also getting a clear shot of her face, all while keeping the sun out of the picture.”

Australian Getty Images photographer Chris McGrath also won the top prize in the General News category for his photo essay on typhoon Haiyan. The series includes images of devastated hillsides, a coffin left along a deserted street, and lines of survivors waiting for aid. 

‘Not so much romantic, as dignified’

A moonlit image of migrants trying to get mobile phone signals on a Djibouti beach on Friday won the top prize – the World Press Photo of the Year award – for US photographer John Stanmeyer.

A 19-member jury awarded the prestigious prize for the haunting photograph of African migrants holding phones up to the sky to capture a signal so they can call home, as they make their way to a hoped-for better life in Europe.

“It’s a photo that is connected to so many other stories — it opens up discussions about technology, globalisation, migration, poverty, desperation, alienation, humanity,” said jury member Jillian Edelstein.

Fellow jury member Susan Linfield said: “So many pictures of migrants show them as bedraggled and pathetic… but this photo is not so much romantic, as dignified.”

Stanmeyer’s website says the US-based VII agency photographer, who took his prize-winning shot for National Geographic, focuses on “social injustices, eradication of global poverty, human rights.” – with reports from Agence France-Presse