International Kontinent Photography Awards 2015 – Winners Announced

The winners of the 2015 Kontinent Awards have recently been announced. Established in 2013 and now in its third edition, the competition aims to honour the world’s best photographers and provide them global recognition and new opportunities. This year’s winners were selected by a judging committee of 15 industry specialists, amongst which sat Alessia Glaviano, the Senior Photo Editor for Vogue Italia and Sophie Batterbury, Head of Pictures at The Independent. Both single photographs and projects were submitted, and the winners were chosen for a number of categories including Advertising, Editorial/Documentary, Fine Art and Nature. Today, we take a look at a selection of the winning entries.

This year’s Grand Winner is Linelle Deunk from the Netherlands with Band of Brothers. Deunk’s photograph captures a slice of everyday life in the Mukono district of Uganda, where Gertrude lives with her husband and seven children. Gertrude is a member of the Katosi Women Development Trust which empowers women by teaching them and supporting them with micro- credits. The micro-credits Gertrude has received have enabled her to give her family reliable access to clean drinking water. Thus, her family is healthy and can focus on growing and developing, rather than simply surviving. This portrait is of the five sons of Gertrude.

Taking 1st Place in the Fine Art – Projects Category is Scarlett Hooft Graafland, also from the Netherlands. Graafland’s work combines traditional photographic techniques with performance and sculpture. Using a surrealist language of intriguing visual jokes, she wittily alludes to her own anthropological interests and environmental concerns. Her winning photographs were taken with an analogue camera, without any digital manipulation, during her extensive travels to the Bolivian Antiplano in 2004. Here, with the help of local artists, she created site-specific installations and photo set-ups which made use of local materials and processes.

See the list of winners at www.kontinentawards.com.

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Credits
1. Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Bolivian Antiplano, 2004. Courtesy of the artist and Kontinent Awards.