Samuel Aranda wins World Press Photo
A woman holds a wounded relative during protests against president Saleh. Sanaa, Yemen, 15 October © Samuel Aranda, Spain, for The New York Times, World Press Photo of the Year 2011.
Samuel Aranda has won this year's World Press Photo, the world's most prestigious photojournalism prize for an iconic image shot in Yemen. Interview.
Author: Olivier Laurent
10 Feb 2012 Tags: World press photoPhotojournalismAwards
"They called me yesterday around 7pm, and told me that I had won the World Press Photo," Samuel Aranda tells BJP in his first interview of the day. "At that exact moment, I was checking my bank account because I didn't know how I was going to pay my rent this month. I was crunching numbers to make it work."
Aranda's winning image shows a woman holding a wounded relative in her arms, inside a mosque used as a field hospital by demonstrators against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, during clashes in Sanaa, Yemen on 15 October 2011. Samuel Aranda was working in Yemen on assignment for The New York Times. He is represented by Corbis Images.
"I think it's really important when you receive such an award to remember that all of this work is for the people we're documenting," he says. "What I would really like is for this photo to help the people of Yemen. I think it's a country that is often forgotten."
Aranda was in Yemen for three months from October 2011, and he's planning to go back for the elections in the next few weeks, again for The New York Times. "I was lucky to work for the Times, because with all that was happening - the economical situation - I was very, very lucky to have the support of this newspaper. They were always supporting me, even when I had difficulties getting a visa to go to Yemen."
Aranda's photo was selected from among 101,254 images submitted by 5247 photographers from 124 countries.
Last year, Institute photographer Jodi Bieber won the award for her controversial photo of a mutilated Afghan woman. The image made the cover of TIME magazine on 09 August 2010, and quickly found itself at the centre of a debate about it legitimacy and the way it had been used by the magazine [read our interview with Jodi Bieber].
At the time, Bieber's image had been chosen from among 108,059 images sent by 5691 photographers.
More soon...
Comments
Congratulations to Samuel Aranda!!! I'm really happy for him.
I would like to ask to the jury why every year it seems to see always the same pictures (in every categories): a sort of boring "international style"?
"I didn't know how I was going to pay my rent this month"
Nice photo, but trying to play the "I'm just a poor, starving photographer" angle just doesn't work when the very next sentence says you are on assignment for the New York Times and repped by Corbis. LOL!
Que triste que esta sea la imagen de un premio tan grande porque no la sonrisa de un niño ó el amanecer de un nuevo dia como la señal de una nueva esperanza.Y no esta que
hace sentir la decesperanza y la obscuridad de la soledad.
It is not the quality of the picture or the color we are looking at, but rather the feelings inside of us which the picture has created. Some may have feeling-proof hearts and some may have otherwise.
As unpleasent as to see this image is,
the storm of emotions that provokes worth that prize million times. Congratulations to the Artist and the Juror as well !!!
Why would you want to see the expression on their faces? As if there wasn't enough in the photograph already?
"Nice photo, but trying to play the "I'm just a poor, starving photographer" angle just doesn't work when the very next sentence says you are on assignment for the New York Times and repped by Corbis. LOL!"
What doesn't work is when photography has been devalued to a point where talented photojournalists like Mr. Aranda can't pay the bills. Every professional photographer knows that the rates for assignments have not improved despite the increased cost of living over the past 20 years and that photo licensing fees are heading down to the abyss.
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