US$10,000 awarded to recipients of Getty Images Instagram Grant
Three winners have recently been named in the second annual Getty Images Instagram Grant. Each of the recipients received a grant of US$10,000 as well as having their work exhibited to the public at the photography festival, Photoville in New York from 21-25 September. This year’s recipients included Christian Rodriguez, Ronny Sen, and Girma Berta.
The grant program was founded to support photographers using Instagram to document stories from underrepresented communities around the world, and in 2016, the grant expanded to include videographers and visual artists telling local stories on Instagram.
2016 winners
Christian Rodriguez
Christian Rodriguez (@christian_foto) is a documentary photographer from Uruguay. His project, Teen Mom, depicts teen pregnancy in Latin America. Directly impacted by teenage motherhood, Rodriguez hopes to raise awareness of the issue and highlight its impact on local communities.
Ronny Sen
Indian documentary photographer, Ronny Sen (@ronnysen, @whatdoestheendoftimelooklike) documented the fires that have burned for just over one hundred years in mineral-rich city of Jharia, in north eastern India. Sen's work uses both photography and videography to spotlight the plight of people who have been affected by big corporations, and depicts survival in an apocalyptic-like landscape.
Girma Berta
Based in Addis Ababa, Girma Berta (@gboxcreative) uses his iPhone to capture the vibrant color and grunge of street life in the capital of Ethiopia. He uses his background in graphics and painting as a guide for lighting and composition, playing with colors and infusing street photography with fine art. His project, Moving Shadows, showcases local street scenes against backdrops of color. A member of @everydayafrica, he uses Instagram as a platform for self-expression and to share his work with the rest of the world.
The judging panel has also recognized the following photographers as Honorable Mentions: Daro Sulakauri (@darosulakauri) from The Republic of Georgia; Ako Salemi (@f64s125) from Tehran, Iran; and Andrew Quilty (@andrewquilty), an Australian photographer based in Afghanistan.
About the winners
Christian Rodriguez
Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Christian Rodriguez began his visual education at the “Taller Dellioti” of fine arts, studying several techniques of drawing and painting. He has worked with news agencies such as AFP, AP and Reuters. In 2006, while covering the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in southern Lebanon, his work started to focus on the topic of daily life and its surroundings.
Rodriguez is currently developing two main long-term projects: Teen Mom, about teenage pregnancy in Latin America, and a personal project on Realismo Mágico (Magical Realism), the Latin American literary trend. His work has been exhibited in festivals around the world including GetxoPhoto, PhotoEspaña, Paraty Em Foco, Photo Phnom Penh Festival, Photobook Bristol, and the Bienal de Fotografìa of the Centro de la Imagen. He has been published internationally, including in National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, El Mundo, Yo Dona, Esquire, El País and others.
In addition to his work as photographer, he is creator and director of SAN JOSE FOTO International festival. He has been awarded the Roberto Villagraz Scholarship of EFTI (Spain), Nuevo Talento Fnac (Spain), and the Ojo de Pez Human Rights First Prize (Spain). Rodriguez gives workshops and lectures in Latin America and Europe.
www.christian-rodriguez.com/
Ronny Sen
Ronny Senwas born in Silchar, Assam, in India. He moved to Salt Lake City in Calcutta in the early 90s with his family where he still lives and works today. Sen represented India at the World Young Artists Event in Nottingham, and was invited on an artist residency program, ‘Jenesys Creators’ in Japan by The Japan Foundation in 2012. He won the first Red Frames Award in the same year and was invited for a master class at the University of California in Berkeley. In 2013, Sen published his first art book, Khmer Din.
In 2014, he won first prize at the MFI awards. In 2015, the Polish Institute invited him to be an artist-in-residence in Poland which later resulted in an exhibition New World Chronicles of an Old World Color at Gallery Latitude 28 in Delhi. A sizeable portion of his early photographic works were recently acquired for the permanent collection of Alkazi Collection of Photography. At present, he is working on his next book and upcoming exhibitions include Noorderlicht Festival in Museum Bélvèdere, Heerenveen, The Netherlands, and a solo exhibition at the TARQ gallery in Bombay in the summer 2016.
ronnysen.photoshelter.com
Girma Berta
Since childhood, Girma Berta has expressed himself through art, paint, music, and now photography. He believes that great stories happen every second of the day, everywhere around us. Berta started photography as a way to challenge his mind. This has enabled him to be aware of his unedited reality happening around him. His background in graphics and painting guides him to always be on the lookout for lighting and composition. He uses Instagram as a platform to share his creativity with the rest of the world, mostly using his iPhone to capture the great stories he finds in his daily life.
His most recent work, which documents the emerging street art scene as taken on his iPhone, was featured on The Guardian. Berta’s work often infuses street photography with fine art, in which he uses this combination to draw attention to his subjects. Bold colors, grunge, and black and white are all part of his visual storytelling arsenal. Perhaps his most distinctive style is in his project, Moving Shadows, which features cutouts of working people on the street. His work has been showcased at different festivals including Photoville and Bamako PhotoFest. In 2014, he organised his own phone photography exhibit where his Streets of Addis series was presented to the public. He is an Art Director and Founder of GBOX Creative Studios, a creative studio dedicated to advertising, branding, and web design based in Addis Ababa.