World Press Photo of the Year: A Tale Told Twice

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/lens/world-press-photo-of-the-year-a-tale-told-twice.html

Version 0 of 1.

The Venezuelan photographer Ronaldo Schemidt of Agence France-Presse received the World Press Photo of the Year award for his image of a man ablaze during a violent protest in Caracas. In an unusual twist, Juan Barreto, also working for Agence France-Presse, took third in the Spot News photos/story category for images made at the same time of the same protester on fire.

The award winners were announced today at the World Press Photo Festival in Amsterdam. The other finalists for the photo of the year award included Ivor Prickett and Adam Ferguson, both freelance photographers for The New York Times, as well as Patrick Brown of Panos Pictures and Toby Melville of Reuters.

Mr. Schemidt made the winning image while covering anti-government protests. When a Molotov cocktail hit a Venezuelan National Guard motorcycle, a demonstrator kicked the bike, which then exploded. Mr. Schemidt turned as a nearby protestor was set ablaze, and he started photographing immediately.

“I wasn't thinking anything in particular at the moment because everything happened so quickly,” he said in a phone interview today. “It was afterward that I was shocked when I realized I saw a man burning.”

Magdalena Herrera, director of photography at Geo France and jury chair, described the winning image as “a classical photo of resistance that is visually striking and has energy.” Mr. Schemidt’s frame was distinctive, she said, and a stronger single image than any by his colleague Mr. Barretto.

“The difference was Ronaldo’s composition,” she said. “In the other series you had a narrative but you didn’t have as strong a single frame.”

Mr. Schemidt noted that the judges make the decisions, not he, adding that “the work of my colleague Juan is excellent and he certainly is also deserving to be in first place.” When he took the photos he just saw it as “one more journey in all the work I did in Venezuela,” if anything.

“I work the same way anywhere in the world that I have to work but this is my country and I am shocked what Venezuela has become,” he said. “I have family and friends still in Venezuela struggling with the effects of the crisis.”

José Víctor Salazar Balza, the subject of Mr. Schemidt’s winning image, recovered from 1st and 2nd degree burns.

Mr. Schemidt’s image also took first place for Spot News/Singles, while Mr. Prickett took first place in the General News Stories category for photos of the battle for Mosul in Iraq made for The New York Times. Mr. Ferguson won first in the People/Stories category for his portraits of teenage girls enlisted as suicide bombers by Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Mr. Brown of Panos Pictures placed first for General News/Singles for his photos of the Rohingya crisis made for Unicef, and David Becker of Getty Images won in the Spot News/Stories category for photos of the mass shooting in Las Vegas. Corey Arnold won first in the Nature/Singles Category for a photo of a bald eagle eating meat scraps from a garbage bin.

Heba Khamis was awarded top prize in the Contemporary Issues/Stories category for her images of breast ironing — a traditional practice in Cameroon carried out in the belief that it will delay maturity and help prevent rapes or sexual advances.

Carla Kogelman took first for Long Term Story for her five-year project on two sisters growing up in a small village in a rural area between Vienna and the Czech Republic. Kadir Van Lohuizen of Noor Images took first in the Environment/Stories category for his story on how waste is managed in six megacities around the world, which was published in The Washington Post.

In the Digital Storytelling portion of the contest, The New York Times took first in the Immersive Storytelling category for a 360 degree VR film that took viewers into the waters beneath the Antarctic Sea ice. The film, “Under a Cracked Sky,” was made by Graham Roberts, Jonathan Corum, Evan Grothjan and Yuliya Parshina-Kottas.

Time magazine took first for an interactive project by Lynsey Addario, Aryn Baker and Francesca Trianni, on three Syrian refugees as they prepared to give birth and raise their children.

Follow @nytimesphoto on Twitter. You can also find Lens on Facebook and Instagram.