Nikon has announced the winning photos of its prestigious Nikon Photo Contest for 2018-2019. This is the 50th year of the contest, which has become one of the world’s largest photography competitions.
The Grand Prize award was given to Spanish photographer Sara De Antonio Feu for her photo “Ayimpoka” (shown above). Here’s the story that accompanied the image:
Ayimpoka lives with her family in a little town in Bolgatanga (Ghana). Albinism has been a cause of discrimination and persecution during years, and murders have been committed against albino children because of the popular association with magic and witchcraft. At Ayimpoka’s house, everyone gives her love and protection and a local NGO provides her weekly care. That day, she was recovering from malaria and she had a lot of sunburns because she was in the sun all day.
The photo was selected from a record 97,369 entries submitted by roughly 33,000 photographers from 170 countries and regions around the globe.
Here are some of the other top photos in this year’s competition:
Donald, 90, sits alone in the background consumed in his suffering with Alzheimer’s and unaware of his wife, Alma, 84 having dinner just feet away. He came back from World War II, changed from the kind caring man she had married, suffering with shellshock (PTSD). After a violent 60-year marriage with Alma, Donald was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In the last few years of his life there was a sudden and rapid change of his demeanor rendering him placid, back to the man she had married.
I took this scene while on a garbage fire project. I accidentally saw this scene and felt so sad and pain in my heart. First, I was thinking this female dog is doing normal breastfeeding to her little babies. But, when I looked carefully to her, she was already dead with injuries. Even with injuries, she took care of her babies until death. She is an animal, but show how great the love of a mother is! It is also a cruel change for the future of her babies too.
A bride embraces her grandfather on her wedding day and bids farewell. The grandfather sheds tears of good-bye as he is overwhelmed by emotions.
My mothers last self given bath before succumbing to Pancreatic Cancer just 12 days later. Trying to maintain as much independence as possible while finally accepting that she was going to die.
Migrants from Syria come in special trains in the hope that their lives will change… Where can we be? What will happen with us? There will be change? I made the picture in transit-zone of the Hungarian Hegyeshalom train station. The European migrant crisis, is a term given to a period beginning in 2015 when thousands and thousands of people arrived in the European Union, travelling across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through Southeast Europe.
Many young people have left farming villages. They work in places away from their homes, and only return for New Year’s. Most of the people who remain in the villages are the elderly and children. This is a situation that has become common in modern day society, however we must consider the reason behind this social issue where the elderly and children are left behind and forced to wait. This is a result of the social challenge we face today, which is the economic imbalance between urban and rural areas. We can only hope for more rapid improvements to be made in society, so that these people may only have to endure these difficult times for a shorter period. This picture shows two elderly women carrying their ill grandchildren and helping them receive IV treatment. Despite their frustration and discouragement, they pray for their grandchildren’s recovery.
People at Ice Fishing Festival, everybody hold a spot in the hole.and then waiting for a fish
Mountains hope for a better future’ is part of a series that focus on women in iran, and their existence.
A very old italian woman is telling me about her entire life. In this photo she is showing her first holy communion (a very important day for a catholic person).
This image was taken at Furong Tunnel in Xiamen University. Its oil painting-like texture was created with a handheld, 5 second long-exposure using a NIKON D5300.
As a child, I was constantly pulled between rich and poor, healthy and weak, free and bound. I had to learn to navigate the different walks of life that I was exposed to which caused me to become tired and weak by the end of the day. I would sit in the backseat of my father’s car waiting tiredly to reach my bed and sleep the night away. This picture aims to capture the essence of a tired and worn thin child.
The old man working on his sewing machine in the right segment of the frame, toiling hard to ensure a better future for his Grandson which is complemented by the visuals in the left segment, where the grandson with his engrossed expressions, struggles to concentrate in a excessive chaos environment but still continuing his studies, despite of his weak socio economic background, only to live upto his grandfather’s dream, the frame is showing the severe hardship of these people.
I took a photo of this series while on assignment about free cataract surgery for people who are not able in remote areas in West Papua, Manokwari Regency, and one of his patients was a mother named Sorina Ullo, who was lucky because after decades she could finally returned to see clearly, the cataract that had long suffered will heal soon.
The camera I always have hanging around my neck is like another pair of eyes, and has essentially become a part of my body. Having the camera doesn’t affect how I engage with other people of the same generation. I am a part of the things that take place in each moment I capture. For me, pointing the lens at something is the same as taking screenshots of my own personal life. Every drop of rain, every smile, every quick motion, and every droplet when water is sprayed. The things I capture are nothing more than ordinary, yet they are all an important part of moments in the dazzling youthful lives of people, including myself. I continue to take photos to preserve the memories of those precious days which I have experienced.
You can find the complete gallery of winning individual photos and photo stories on the Nikon Photo Contest website.
The winning photos from this year’s competition will travel the world as the Nikon Photo Contest 2018-2019 Photo Exhibition, visiting major cities across Europe and Asia.