2022 World Press Photo Contest winners
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The global winners of the 2022 World Press Photo Contest have been announced. These winning images from the competition strive to ‘recognizes the best photojournalism and documentary photography of the previous year,’ according to World Press Photo.
For this year’s competition, 64,823 photographs and open format images captured by 4,066 photographers from 130 countries were submitted to be judged. Judging involved both regional and global juries, which saw the regional judges whittle down the choices from their respective regions to then be submitted to the global jury for the final selections. You can read more about the judging process on World Press Photo’s website.
As for prizes, World Press Photo says ‘Every regional winner of the Contest receives a monetary prize of €1,000, inclusion in the annual worldwide exhibition, inclusion in the annual yearbook, publication and a personal profile on the World Press Photo website, promotion on World Press Photo platforms, an invitation to the Winners’ Program, and a physical award.’ Global winners, in addition to their regional prizes, also receive an extra €5,000 (~$5,500) monetary prize, as well as a physical reward.
This year’s global World Press Photo of the Year award goes to Amber Bracken of Canada, who captured ‘Kamloops Residential School’ for The New York Times. In this image, Bracken captured ‘Red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside [to] commemorate children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, an institution created to assimilate Indigenous children, following the detection of as many as 215 unmarked graves, Kamloops, British Columbia, 19 June 2021.’
Speaking to the image, global jury chair Rena Effendi said ‘It is a kind of image that sears itself into your memory, it inspires a kind of sensory reaction. I could almost hear the quietness in this photograph, a quiet moment of global reckoning for the history of colonization, not only in Canada but around the world.’
The following gallery will highlight the global winners for Photo of the Year (one image), Photo Story of the Year (four images), Photo Long-Term Project Award (five images) and Photo Open Format Award (a screenshot of the video project and a link out to the video).
You can browse the entire library of prize-winning images on the World Press Photo contest page.
World Press Photo of the Year (Global) – Kamloops Residential School by Amber Bracken, for The New York Times
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| © Amber Bracken, for The New York Times |
Caption: Red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside commemorate children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, an institution created to assimilate Indigenous children, following the detection of as many as 215 unmarked graves, Kamloops, British Columbia, 19 June 2021.
Story: Residential schools began operating in the 19th century as part of a policy of forcibly assimilating people from various Indigenous communities into Western culture of the European colonists and missionaries. Upwards of 150,000 students were forcibly removed from their homes and parents, often forbidden to communicate in their own languages, and subject to physical and sometimes sexual abuse. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that at least 4,100 students died while at the schools. The Kamloops School became the largest in the system. In May 2021, a survey using ground-penetrating radar identified as many as 215 potential juvenile burial sites at Kamloops – confirming reports from oral histories.
World Press Photo Story of the Year (Global) – Saving Forests with Fire by Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures
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| © Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures |
Caption: Nawarddeken elder Conrad Maralngurra burns grass to protect the Mamadawerre community from late-season ‘wildfires’, in Mamadawerre, Arnhem Land, Australia, on 3 May 2021. The late-evening fire will die out naturally once the temperature drops and moisture levels rise.
Story: Indigenous Australians strategically burn land in a practice known as cool burning, in which fires move slowly, burn only the undergrowth, and remove the build-up of fuel that feeds bigger blazes. The Nawarddeken people of West Arnhem Land, Australia, have been practicing controlled cool burns for tens of thousands of years and see fire as a tool to manage their 1.39 million hectare homeland. Warddeken rangers combine traditional knowledge with contemporary technologies to prevent wildfires, thereby decreasing climate-heating CO2.
World Press Photo Story of the Year (Global) – Saving Forests with Fire by Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures
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| © Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures |
Caption: A black kite (subspecies Affinis of Milvus migrans) flies above a cool-burn fire lit by hunters earlier in the day, in Mamadawerre, Arnhem Land, Australia, on 2 May 2021. The raptor, also known as a firehawk, is native to Northern and Eastern Australia, and hunts near active fires, snatching up large insects, small mammals, and reptiles as they flee the flames.
Story: Indigenous Australians strategically burn land in a practice known as cool burning, in which fires move slowly, burn only the undergrowth, and remove the build-up of fuel that feeds bigger blazes. The Nawarddeken people of West Arnhem Land, Australia, have been practicing controlled cool burns for tens of thousands of years and see fire as a tool to manage their 1.39 million hectare homeland. Warddeken rangers combine traditional knowledge with contemporary technologies to prevent wildfires, thereby decreasing climate-heating CO2.
World Press Photo Story of the Year (Global) – Saving Forests with Fire by Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures
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| © Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures |
Caption: Stacey Lee (11, left) sets the bark of trees alight to produce a natural light source to help hunt for file snakes (Acrochordus arafurae), in Djulkar, Arnhem Land, Australia, on 22 July 2021.
Story: Indigenous Australians strategically burn land in a practice known as cool burning, in which fires move slowly, burn only the undergrowth, and remove the build-up of fuel that feeds bigger blazes. The Nawarddeken people of West Arnhem Land, Australia, have been practicing controlled cool burns for tens of thousands of years and see fire as a tool to manage their 1.39 million hectare homeland. Warddeken rangers combine traditional knowledge with contemporary technologies to prevent wildfires, thereby decreasing climate-heating CO2.
World Press Photo Story of the Year (Global) – Saving Forests with Fire by Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures
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| © Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures |
Caption: A group of Nawarddeken women elders hunt for turtles with homemade tools on floodplains near Gunbalanya, Arnhem Land, Australia on 31 October 2021. They spent all day finding just two turtles, which are a popular delicacy. Soon the grass will be burned to make the hunt easier.
Story: Indigenous Australians strategically burn land in a practice known as cool burning, in which fires move slowly, burn only the undergrowth, and remove the build-up of fuel that feeds bigger blazes. The Nawarddeken people of West Arnhem Land, Australia, have been practicing controlled cool burns for tens of thousands of years and see fire as a tool to manage their 1.39 million hectare homeland. Warddeken rangers combine traditional knowledge with contemporary technologies to prevent wildfires, thereby decreasing climate-heating CO2.
World Press Photo Long Term Project Award (Global) – Amazonian Dystopia by Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures
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© Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures |
Caption: An aerial view of the construction of the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River, Altamira, Pará, Brazil, on 3 September 2013. More than 80% of the river’s water has been diverted from its natural course to build the hydroelectric project. The drastic reduction in water flow has an adverse impact both on the environment and on the livelihoods of traditional communities living downstream of the dam.
Story: The Amazon rainforest is under great threat, as deforestation, mining, infrastructural development and exploitation of natural resources gain momentum under President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmentally regressive policies. Since 2019, devastation of the Brazilian Amazon has been running at its fastest pace in a decade. An area of extraordinary biodiversity, the Amazon is home to more than 350 different Indigenous groups. Exploitation of the Amazon has a number of social impacts, particularly on Indigenous communities who are forced to deal with significant degradation of their environment, as well as their way of life.
World Press Photo Long Term Project Award (Global) – Amazonian Dystopia by Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures
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| © Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures |
Caption: Members of the Munduruku community line up to board a plane at Altamira Airport, in Pará, Brazil, on 14 June 2013. After protesting at the site of the construction of the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River, they traveled to the national capital Brasilia to present their demands to the government. The Munduruku community inhabit the banks of another tributary of the Amazon, the Tapajos River, several hundred kilometers away, where the government has plans to build further hydroelectric projects. Despite pressure from indigenous people, environmentalists and non-governmental organizations, the Belo Monte project was built and completed in 2019.
Story: The Amazon rainforest is under great threat, as deforestation, mining, infrastructural development and exploitation of natural resources gain momentum under President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmentally regressive policies. Since 2019, devastation of the Brazilian Amazon has been running at its fastest pace in a decade. An area of extraordinary biodiversity, the Amazon is home to more than 350 different Indigenous groups. Exploitation of the Amazon has a number of social impacts, particularly on Indigenous communities who are forced to deal with significant degradation of their environment, as well as their way of life.
World Press Photo Long Term Project Award (Global) – Amazonian Dystopia by Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures
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| © Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures |
Caption: A boy rests on a dead tree trunk in the Xingu River in Paratizão, a community located near the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, Pará, Brazil, on 28 August 2018. He is surrounded by patches of dead trees, formed after the flooding of the reservoir.
Story: The Amazon rainforest is under great threat, as deforestation, mining, infrastructural development and exploitation of natural resources gain momentum under President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmentally regressive policies. Since 2019, devastation of the Brazilian Amazon has been running at its fastest pace in a decade. An area of extraordinary biodiversity, the Amazon is home to more than 350 different Indigenous groups. Exploitation of the Amazon has a number of social impacts, particularly on Indigenous communities who are forced to deal with significant degradation of their environment, as well as their way of life.
World Press Photo Long Term Project Award (Global) – Amazonian Dystopia by Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures
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| © Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures |
Caption: Stray dogs stare at meat hanging in a butcher’s shop in Vila da Ressaca, an area previously mined for gold but now almost completely abandoned, in Altamira, Pará, Brazil, on 2 September 2013.
Story: The Amazon rainforest is under great threat, as deforestation, mining, infrastructural development and exploitation of natural resources gain momentum under President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmentally regressive policies. Since 2019, devastation of the Brazilian Amazon has been running at its fastest pace in a decade. An area of extraordinary biodiversity, the Amazon is home to more than 350 different Indigenous groups. Exploitation of the Amazon has a number of social impacts, particularly on Indigenous communities who are forced to deal with significant degradation of their environment, as well as their way of life.
World Press Photo Long Term Project Award (Global) – Amazonian Dystopia by Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures
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| © Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures |
Caption: Massive deforestation is evident in Apuí, a municipality along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, southern Amazon, Brazil, on 24 August 2020. Apuí is one of the region’s most deforested municipalities.
Story: The Amazon rainforest is under great threat, as deforestation, mining, infrastructural development and exploitation of natural resources gain momentum under President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmentally regressive policies. Since 2019, devastation of the Brazilian Amazon has been running at its fastest pace in a decade. An area of extraordinary biodiversity, the Amazon is home to more than 350 different Indigenous groups. Exploitation of the Amazon has a number of social impacts, particularly on Indigenous communities who are forced to deal with significant degradation of their environment, as well as their way of life.
World Press Photo Open Format Award (Global) – Blood is a Seed by Isadora Romero
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| A still from Blood is a Seed. © Isadora Romero |
Story: Blood is a Seed (La Sangre Es Una Semilla) questions the disappearance of seeds, forced migration, colonization, and the subsequent loss of ancestral knowledge. The video is composed of digital and film photographs, some of which were taken on expired 35mm film and later drawn on by Romero’s father. In a journey to their ancestral village of Une, Cundinamarca, Colombia, Romero explores forgotten memories of the land and crops and learns about her grandfather and great-grandmother who were ‘seed guardians’ and cultivated several potato varieties, only two of which still mainly exist.
You can view the entire Blood is a Seed video on World Press Photo’s website.
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This article comes from DP Review and can be read on the original site.
