The jury of the 59th annual World Press Photo Contest has selected an image by Australian photographer Warren Richardson as the World Press Photo of the Year 2015.
The winning image: A man passes a baby through the fence at the Hungarian-Serbian border in Rø¶szke, Hungary, 28 August 2015. © Warren Richardson, Australia.
Richardson’s picture ““ which also won first prize in the Spot News category ““ shows refugees crossing the border from Serbia into Hungary, near Horgoš (Serbia) and Rø¶szke (Hungary). Taken at night on 28 August 2015, this man and child were part of the movement of people seeking to cross into Hungary before a secure fence on the border was completed.
Richardson is a freelance photographer, currently based in Budapest, Hungary. Explaining how the picture was made he said:
I camped with the refugees for five days on the border. A group of about 200 people arrived, 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. It was around three o’clock in the morning and you can’t use a flash while the police are trying to find these people, because I would just give them away. So I had to use the moonlight alone.
The 2016 contest drew entries from 5,775 photographers from 128 countries, who submitted 82,951 images. The jury gave prizes in eight categories to 41 photographers from 21 countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, and the USA. The award-winning photos have been posted in an image gallery at http://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo/2016. You can also watch and download exclusive video interviews with the jury members at https://vimeo.com/album/3786599.