Nature, 2nd prize stories. © Brent Stirton, South Africa, 2015, Getty Images for National Geographic. A Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighter holds two ivory tusks. Ivory is a means of financing the LRA and is used for both food and weapon supplies. Near, Sudan, 17 November 2014.
Nature, 2nd prize stories. © Brent Stirton, South Africa, 2015, Getty Images for National Geographic. Margret Acino (32) was abducted from a field outside her village by the Lord’s Resistance Army
Nature, 2nd prize stories. © Brent Stirton, South Africa, 2015, Getty Images for National Geographic. Zakouma National Park is home to the largest remaining elephant herd in the world.
Nature, 2nd prize stories. © Brent Stirton, South Africa, 2015, Getty Images for National Geographic. Rangers exhibit their riding skills as they return to Zakouma National Park after weeks on elephant patrol. Zakouma, Chad, 7 January 2015.
World Press Photo of the Year. © Warren Richardson, Australia, 2015. Hope for a New Life. A man passes a baby through the fence at the Serbia/Hungary border in Röszke, Hungary, 28 August 2015.
Daily Life, 2nd prize stories. © Kevin Frayer, Canada, 2015, Getty Images. Tibetan Buddhist nuns stand following a chanting session in Sertar county, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, China, 30 October 2015.
Daily Life, 2nd prize stories. © Kevin Frayer, Canada, 2015, Getty Images. Tibetan prayer flags, known as Lung-ta, on a hillside in the Larung Valley of Sertar County, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, China, 30 October 2015.
Daily Life, 2nd prize stories. Kevin Frayer, Canada, 2015, Getty Images. Tibetan Buddhist nomads cook by candlelight in Sertar county, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, China, 31 October 2015.
Daily Life, 2nd prize stories. © Kevin Frayer, Canada, 2015, Getty Images. Tibetan Buddhist nomads listen during the annual Bliss Dharma Assembly in Sertar county, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, China, 31 October 2015.
Nature, 1st prize singles. © Rohan Kelly, Australia, 2015, Daily Telegraph. Storm Front on Bondi Beach. A massive 'cloud tsunami' looms over Sydney as a sunbather reads, oblivious to the approaching cloud on Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia on 6 November 2015.
Nature, 3rd prize singles. © Sergio Tapiro, Mexico, 2015. The Power of Nature. Colima Volcano in Mexico shows a powerful night explosion with lightning, ballistic projectiles and incandescent rockfalls; image taken in the Comala municipality in Colima, Mexico, 13 December 2015.
Sports, 1st prize singles. © Christian Walgram, Austria, 2015, GEPA pictures, FIS World Championships. Czech Republic's Ondrej Bank crashes during the downhill race of the Alpine Combined at the FIS World Championships in Beaver Creek, Colorado, USA, on 15 February 2015.
Contemporary Issues, 1st prize singles. © Zhang Lei, China, 2015, Tianjin Daily, Haze in China. A city in northern China shrouded in haze, Tianjin, China, 10 December 2015.
Contemporary Issues, 2nd prize singles Adriane Ohanesian, USA, 2015, The Forgotten Mountains of Sudan. Adam Abdel, 7, was severely burned after a bomb was dropped by a Sudanese government Antonov plane next to his family home in Burgu, Central Darfur, Sudan. 27 February 2015.
Daily Life, 1st prize singles. © Kevin Frayer, Canada, 2015, Getty Images. China's Coal Addiction. Chinese men pull a tricycle in a neighborhood next to a coal-fired power plant in Shanxi, China, on 26 November 2015.

Australians dominate at World Press Photo

By Marc Gafen | 14 March 2016

Recently, the winners of the 59th annual World Press Photo Contest were announced in Amsterdam. This year, an image by Australian photographer, Warren Richardson was chosen as the World Press Photo of the Year 2015. The award honours a photographer “whose visual creativity and skills made a picture that captures or represents an event or issue of great journalistic importance in the last year”.

World Press Photo of the Year. © Warren Richardson, Australia, 2015. Hope for a New Life. A man passes a baby through the fence at the Serbia/Hungary border in Röszke, Hungary, 28 August 2015.

The winning image, shot by Richardson in late August 2015 shows refugees crossing the border from Serbia into Hungary, where a baby is being through the fence at the Hungarian-Serbian border in Roszke, Hungary, also won first prize in the Spot News category.

Warren Richardson. Photo by Ildiko Fulop.

Currently based in Budapest, Hungary, Richardson camped with the refugees on the border for five days. “A group of about 200 people arrived,” Richardson said, “and they moved under the trees along the fence line. They sent women and children, then fathers and elderly men first. I must have been with this crew for about five hours and we played cat and mouse with the police the whole night. I was exhausted by the time I took the picture... around three o’clock in the morning.”

This year, 82,951 images were submitted from 5,775 photographers from 128 countries around the world. The jury awarded prizes in a total of eight categories. Other Australians recognised this year included Daniel Berehulak whose work for The New York Time, An Earthquake's Aftermath, Nepal, was awarded General News, 3rd prize stories, while his series, An Antarctic Advantage, also shot for The New York Times was awarded Daily Life, 1st prize stories. Rohan Kelly was awarded Nature, 1st prize singles for his image, Storm Front on Bondi Beach.

Nature, 1st prize singles. © Rohan Kelly, Australia, 2015, Daily Telegraph. Storm Front on Bondi Beach.
A massive 'cloud tsunami' looms over Sydney as a sunbather reads, oblivious to the approaching cloud on Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia on 6 November
2015. — Nature, 1st prize singles. © Rohan Kelly, Australia, 2015, Daily Telegraph. Storm Front on Bondi Beach. A massive 'cloud tsunami' looms over Sydney as a sunbather reads, oblivious to the approaching cloud on Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia on 6 November 2015.

The jury consisted of a group of 18 internationally recognized professionals in the fields of photojournalism and documentary photography from 16 countries. The premier award, the World Press Photo of the Year, carries a cash prize of 10,000 euros. The prize-winning pictures are presented in an exhibition visiting around 100 cities in about 45 countries over the course of the year and seen by more than 3.5 million people worldwide. The first World Press Photo exhibition opens in De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, on 16 April 2016.

To see more...

Nature, 3rd prize singles. © Sergio Tapiro, Mexico, 2015. The Power of Nature. Colima Volcano in Mexico shows a powerful night explosion with lightning,
ballistic projectiles and incandescent rockfalls; image taken in the Comala municipality in Colima, Mexico, 13 December 2015. — Nature, 3rd prize singles. © Sergio Tapiro, Mexico, 2015. The Power of Nature. Colima Volcano in Mexico shows a powerful night explosion with lightning, ballistic projectiles and incandescent rockfalls; image taken in the Comala municipality in Colima, Mexico, 13 December 2015.