Coronavirus hug image named World Press Photo of the Year

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands (AP) – A photo that symbolizes ‘love and compassion’ of an 85-year-old Brazilian woman who received her first hug from a nurse through a transparent ‘hugging curtain’ in five months was the World Press Photo of the Year on Thursday.

The choice of a winning photo of the global pandemic was almost inevitable for the competition that spanned a year in which news around the world was dominated by the virus that killed nearly 3 million people, including more than 360,000 in hard-hit Brazil.

Danish photographer Mads Nissen’s photo captured the moment when Rosa Luzia Lunardi was hugged by nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza at Viva Bem nursing home in Sao Paulo on August 5.

A clear plastic curtain – whose yellow edges are folded into a shape resembling a pair of butterfly wings – provides protection, as does the nurse’s face mask.

“This iconic image of COVID-19 commemorates the most extraordinary moment of our lives, anywhere,” said judge Kevin WY Lee. “I read vulnerability, loved ones, loss and separation, demise, but, more importantly, survival – all put together into one graphical image. If you look at the picture long enough, you will see wings: a symbol of flight and hope. “

The photo that Nissen took for the agency Panos Pictures and the Danish daily newspaper Politiken also won first prize in the General News Singles category of the prestigious competition.

“The main message of this image is empathy. It’s love and compassion, ”said Nissen in a response from the competition organizers.

“It’s a very, very difficult, grim situation and then, in that horror, in that suffering, I think this photo also sheds some light,” Nissen said during an online awards ceremony after being told he was awarded the prize and the 5,000 euros had won. ($ 6,000) price that goes with it.

Runner-up in the category was a much grimmer COVID-19 image – the body of a suspected coronavirus victim wrapped tightly in plastic at a hospital in Indonesia on April 18 by Indonesian photographer Joshua Irwandi.

The pandemic even hit the Environment Singles category, with American photographer Ralph Pace winning for his photo of a curious California sea lion floating up to a face mask floating underwater at the Breakwater dive site in Monterey.

The judges looked at 74,470 photos from 4,315 photographers before selecting winners in eight categories, including general news, sports, the environment and portraits.

The World Press Photo Story of the Year was awarded to Italian documentary photographer Antonio Faccilongo, who works for Getty Reportage, for a series entitled ‘Habibi’ about Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons smuggling their sperm from detention centers in the hope of raising a family. bring .

Winner in the Spot News Singles category was an image that epitomized the debate about racing in the United States. Evelyn Hockstein’s photo for The Washington Post shows a white man and black woman disagreeing about the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, DC, which shows a freedman kneeling at Abraham Lincoln’s feet.

The Black Lives Matter movement was also featured, with Associated Press photographer John Minchillo’s series about the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder winning third prize in the Spot News Stories category, won by Italian Lorenzo Tugnoli who worked for Contrasto for a series of images depicting the devastating port blast in Beirut.

The Contemporary Issues Story category was won by Russian photographer Alexey Vasilyev with a series about the film industry in the north-eastern Russian region of Sakha. Associated Press photographer Maya Alleruzzo took second place in the category with a story about the Islamic State group that enslaved Yazidi women in Iraq.