The winners of the 58th World Press Photo Contest were announced today in Amsterdam. The winner of the World Press Photo of the Year captures an intimate moment of two gay men, Jon and Alex, and is part of a larger project "Homophobia in Russia" by Danish photographer Mads Nissen.
Mads Nissen started to break through around 15 years ago with a new approach to photography. On the edge of personal documentary, Nissen attempts to get to the core of the moment, with highly emotive and descriptive images. The winning image is not a typical press picture. Still, it is a picture effecting millions over the world. It is a picture capturing both, love and hate. In a lot of countries, being gay is a dangerous thing to be and Nissen does bring attention to that. He himself sees the image, shot in St. Petersburg, as "a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story" about two people in love but facing outside forces who want to deny them their feelings.
On his first trip to Russia, Nissen witnessed firsthand some of the brutality towards the LGBT community, when his friend, an activist in the Gay Pride community, was attacked after kissing his boyfriend goodbye. His experiences inspired him to pursue the "Homophobia in Russia" series, and to return to Russia again and again. In an interview for British Journal of Photography, describing the project earlier this year, Nissen said:
"As a photographer, but also just as a human being, you notice a lot of changes or tendencies in society that are difficult to ignore, even though they can be quite hard to identify. In the past I’ve worked as an activist for grassroots organizations, and came across some militant, hardcore, radical left-wing groups. I remember they all had the same dress code. I reflected a lot on how the group worked, and it didn’t seem related to politics. It was more a matter of culture and identity. What you wear, how you project yourself – that’s a key thing for a photographer to understand."
The World Press Photo Contest encourages the highest standards in photojournalism, while connecting it to the general public. The 2015 Contest drew entries from 97,912 images taken by 5,692 photographers from 131 countries. The exhibition of the winning photographs will travel the world, showing the pictures in more than 100 cities in over 45 different countries, and reaching to more than 2 million people. The juries consist of leading experts in the journalist industry and are changing every year. Check out some of their comments on Mads Nissen and his photography below.
Alessia Glaviano, Senior Photo Editor of Vogue Italia:
“Today, terrorists use graphic images for propaganda. We have to respond with something more subtle, intense and thoughtful. The photo has a message about love being an answer in the context of all that is going on in the world. It is about love as a global issue, in a way that transcends homosexuality. It sends out a strong message to the world, not just about homosexuality, but about equality, about gender, about being black or white, about all of the issues related to minorities.”
Australian professor, writer, and producer David Campbell:
“This is a visually great photo about an important political issue in Russia and a global human rights issue. It is as newsworthy as any other photo that could have been chosen.”