Image © Jonathan Hyams

Nan Goldin has picked out Newport graduate and BJP reader Jonathan Hyams to win the Ctrl.Alt.Shift photography prize.
The prize, run by Vice Magazine on behalf of Christian Aid, offered young photographers £1000, a DSLR, an exhibition and the chance to work with one of five volunteer mentors. Hyams is now working with Andy Capper, editor of Vice.
Photographers were invited to submit images focusing on Gender, Power and Poverty, and Hyam’s winning image depicts a young Zimbabwean sex worker in Mozambique. The number of migrants illegally crossing the border into Mozambique has escalated wildly since the highly contested Zimbabwe elections. Male immigrants often work in illegal gold mines, while young women sell sex for less than the price of a local beer, several times a night, in order to send money home.
‘The women cross just over the border to a car park, where they work,’ said Hyams. ‘They exchange the money for maize or vegetable oil, both of which are now used as money in Zimbabwe, or into any hard currency they can get their hands on.
‘I won the Hello! Young Photographer’s Award earlier this year and used the £5000 prize to invest in a mobile lighting kit and go back to Africa,’ he added. ‘Photographically it was a change of direction, so it’s great that’s it’s been well received.’
Capper told BJP he had been ‘blown away’ by both the quality and number of entries to the competition. ‘We expected around 500 entries but we got 1000, and were very surprised at the quality,’ he says. ‘Young photographers are really putting themselves on the line to produce high-quality photojournalism.’
Capper now intends to work with Hyams, who graduated from the University of Newport in 2007, in future editions of Vice. Hyams entered the Ctrl.Alt.Shift prize at Vice’s stand at Vision, BJP's event for young photographers.