The international competition jury of the 55th World Press Photo Competition has announced the winners of the prestigious award.

Photo: AP

The photo shows a woman in traditional Muslim clothing holding an injured relative in her arms. The photo was taken on October 15 in a hospital in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, where the victim was taken after participating in a protest against Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A jury of 19 recognized photography professionals, led by Briton Aidan Sullivan, recognized that the photograph taken by the Spaniard conveys the spirit of the Arab Spring, which became one of the main phenomena of 2011.

Last year's winner was South African photographer Joji Bieber. She won the top prize for her shocking image of 18-year-old Afghan woman Bibi Aisha, whose ears and nose were cut off by her husband as punishment for her attempt to escape.

Russian winners

In addition to the Spaniard, the winners of the most prestigious competition among photojournalists, World Press Photo, in 2011 were 57 photographers from 24 countries. To select the most worthy, the jury had to review and discuss more than 100 thousand photographs received from 5 thousand authors.

Three Russian photographers were among the prize winners. In the News category, the first prize went to Time magazine staff correspondent Yuri Kozyrev for his photograph depicting rebels taken in the Libyan city of Ras al-Anouf. This is not the first award for Yu. Kozyrev. Before that, he received an award for photographs from Iraq, where he spent several years.

The first prize in the “Sporting Event” category went to Russian Alexander Taran for a photo taken during the “Strelka” street fighting competition in St. Petersburg. Russian Alexander Gronsky was awarded third place in the “Daily Life” category for one of the works in the “Pastoral” series.

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The coverage of the events of the disaster in Japan in the photo world did not go unnoticed. Thus, the winners in one of the categories were the Japanese Koichiro Tezuka and Yasuyoshi Chiba, who worked in the disaster zone in the spring.

Also noted were the works of the Italian Alex Maggioli, who photographed demonstrators in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Frenchman Remi Ochlik, who worked in Libya, and the South African Brent Stirton, who won in the Portraits category with a photograph of the prostitute Maria, taken in Kyiv.

Nomadic photographer

The current “headliner” of the prestigious photo award, S. Aranda, was born in 1979. in Barcelona. At the age of 19, he began working as a photo reporter for the Spanish newspapers "El Pais", "20 minutos" and "El Periodico de Catalunya", and at the age of 21 he moved to Israel, where he continued to work for the EFE news agency.

A new turn in the career of a promising photographer was work at the France Presse agency. Since 2004 He covers events in the Middle East and Africa, and also makes a series of photographs dedicated to Spanish migrants, for which he received his first international awards.

Since 2006 S. Aranda works as a freelance photographer for various regional and international publications. His work on the issue of African immigrants was awarded the Spanish National Photography Prize. From that time on he became a freelancer. He worked on projects in Uzbekistan (the Aral Sea), India, Kosovo, South Africa (before the World Cup), and covered conflicts in Colombia, Moldova and Transnistria.

Since 2011 The main focus of his work remains the theme of the “Arab Spring.” He actively filmed in countries that experienced coups d'etat - Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. His work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Le Monde, Newsweek, Stern, and Geo.

Around the world photo tours

The World Press Photo Prize was established under the patronage of the Prince of the Netherlands in 1955 to encourage and promote talented photojournalists from around the world. Today this competition is considered the most prestigious in the field of photojournalism.

Prizes are awarded in ten different categories – from “Hot Report” to “Nature”. In total, the competition has 10 nominations, which in turn are divided into thematic categories, so dozens of authors become winners of awards of varying denominations.

The winner of the main prize receives a cash prize of 10 thousand euros and a digital camera. After summing up the results of the competition, an album is published with all the photographs of the winners with comments in six languages.

Also, according to tradition, an exhibition of the winning works is held in Amsterdam for two months, and then the photographs are sent to travel around the world. Over the course of a year, residents of 100 cities in 45 countries can get acquainted with the best photos of the planet. Showcasing the best photographs from World Press Photo since 2007. is also organized in Moscow.

The best photographs of 2011 have been named