Russian photographer Emil Gataullin received the prestigious Alfred Fried Photography Award in Vienna on Monday for a series of black-and-white images capturing the rhythms of rural life in his native country.
The prize, now in its second year, celebrates the world’s best picture on the theme of peace.
Gataullin was honoured at a ceremony inside the Austrian Parliament. Doris Bures, speaker of the Austrian National Council (lower house of the Austrian Parliament), presented Gataullin with a check for €5,000 and unveiled a print of the winning image that will be displayed in the Parliament building for one year.
While Gataullin was the contest’s overall winner, five additional entries were presented with the Alfred Fried Photography Award Medal: Pierre Adenis, for his shots of leisure at Tempelhof, Berlin’s airport-turned-sprawling city park; Heidi and Hans-Jürgen Koch, who photographed the return of bison, once nearly extinct in the wild, to the American West; Max Kratzer, for his moving profiles of young asylum seekers in Munich; Davide Tremolada, who pieced together haunting images of wild animals resettling bombed-out Syrian cities; and Ann-Christine Woehrl, for her unflinching look at female victims of fire and acid attacks in Africa and Asia.
Addressing ceremony attendees, International Press Institute (IPI) Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie underscored that IPI had been founded upon the belief that journalism could contribute to peace and dialogue among peoples. “Tonight,” she told the audience, “we recognise photographers who, in the midst of this struggle, have […] used their work to contribute to peace somewhere in the world.”
The Alfred Fried Photography Award is supported by the Photographische Gesellschaft and the Austrian publishing house Edition Lammerhuber, in partnership with IPI, UNESCO, the Austrian Parliament, and the Austrian Parliamentary Reporting Association. It is named after Alfred H. Fried, an Austrian pacifist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911.