Belarusian Photographer Among Nominees For 2021 World Press Photo Contest

The World Press Pho­to of the Year hon­ours the pho­tog­ra­ph­er whose visu­al cre­ativ­i­ty and skills made a pic­ture that cap­tures or rep­re­sents an event of great jour­nal­is­tic impor­tance. The prize is con­sid­ered the most pres­ti­gious inter­na­tion­al award for pho­to­jour­nal­ism.

On 10 March 2021, the World Press Pho­to Foun­da­tion announced the nom­i­nees for the 2021 World Press Pho­to Con­test and Dig­i­tal Sto­ry­telling Con­test. An inde­pen­dent jury com­pris­ing a group of experts from around the world select­ed the best visu­al jour­nal­ism of 2020. The jury of the 64th WPP select­ed Nadezh­da Buzhan as one of the final­ists in the Spot News cat­e­go­ry. This means that she will take first, sec­ond or third place in this nom­i­na­tion.

Her pho­to shows Olga Sev­er­inets wait­ing for her hus­band and oppo­si­tion politi­cian Pavel out­side the deten­tion cen­tre on Okrestin Street. Pavel was arrest­ed while col­lect­ing sig­na­tures in sup­port of can­di­dates to stand against Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko in his bid for a sixth con­sec­u­tive term in office. A well-known polit­i­cal activist had been held on remand since 7 June, and his fam­i­ly had learned he was about to be released. Olga wait­ed out­side the prison for two hours, but Pavel was nev­er freed.

“I sent this pho­to at the very last moment. I have already pre­pared the let­ter and before press­ing the but­ton, I remem­bered about it. There were so many events after the elec­tion that this shot was almost for­got­ten,” Nasha Niva quotes Nadezh­da Buzhan.

Pho­tog­ra­phers from Belarus have become World Press Pho­to final­ists for the sec­ond year in a row. In 2020, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Tatyana Tkache­va took sec­ond place in the Por­traits cat­e­go­ry with a series of por­traits and sto­ries titled Between Law and Shame, which tells about Belaru­sian women who have decid­ed to have an abor­tion.

The jury looked through almost 75,000 pic­tures from over 4,000 pho­tog­ra­phers that applied, to select 45 pro­fes­sion­als from 28 dif­fer­ent coun­tries. Nadezhda’s pho­to is the only one telling about the events that fol­lowed the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Belarus. The win­ners of the 2021 Pho­to Con­test and the 2021 Dig­i­tal Sto­ry­telling Con­test will be announced on 15 April in an online awards cer­e­mo­ny.