BJP International Photography Award

In partnership with the Association of Photographers Sponsored by Spectrum Photographic, Leaf, Peartree, Sigma and Colt Press

PAST WINNERS

Beso Uznadze – body of work, 2008
Bezo Uznadze is based in London but comes from Tbilisi, Georgia, and scooped the body of work prize in 2008 with a haunting collection of portraits from his hometown. Showing the stress wrecked by years of political instability, his images suggested the horror of war in a very subtle, nuanced way. Uznadze has won numerous other awards, and his images have been selected for two of the NPG’s Portrait Prizes.

© Beso Uznadze

Walter Astrada – single image, 2008
Argentinian photographer Walter Astrada won the first-ever single image category of the International Photography Award with a stunning, harrowing shot of a female victim of femicide in Guatemela. This year, he won a World Press Photo award, his second in three years. Now based in Spain, Astrada has now been documenting violence in Africa for a few years, selling the result via agencies such as Associated Press and Agence France Presse.

Carla Verea – 2007
Young Mexican photographer Carla Verea picked up the BJP International Photography Award in 2007 with a powerful set of portraits of Guatemalan bodyguards. Since then her images have gone on show at the XII Bienal of Photography in Mexico City and curator Daniel Garza Usabiaga’s show in the Museo de la Cuidad de Mexico. Earlier this year Verea was selected to attend the prestigious Joop Swart Master Class arranged by World Press Photo in Amsterdam.

Charlie Crane – 2006
British-based documentary photographer Charlie Crane won the 2006 award with a series of images on North Korea, entitled Welcome to Pyongyang. Showing the glossy surface of a state in which little goes uncensored, his work provided a revealing insight into the secretive state’s self-image. The project has since been published as a book by Chris Boot, which was reviewed in the Sunday Telegraph, and Charlie went on to scoop won of the top honours in the Lucie Awards in 2007.

Frank Herfort – 2005
German photographer Frank Herfort scooped the prize in 2005 with a series of images shot in Moscow, showing Russian citizens in repose. Herfort’s contested with bitterly cold conditions and the language barrier to shoot the project, which beat off a host of far better known photographers. Herfort is now based in Germany and Russia, where he shoots for clients such as Adidas, Nike and Aeroflot and titles such as Wallpaper, Stern, Jalouse and The Observer. He won an award in the Px3 Prix de la Photographie Paris earlier this year.