Cell phone picture wins Czech Press Photo competition

The annual Czech Press Photo competition, which evaluates both professional and amateur journalistic photographs from around the world, has selected the winners of the 2017 competition. And for the first time, the winner is a photograph taken not with an expensive camera, but with a simple cell phone.

Martin Bandzak and his Czech Press Photo 2017 Photograph of the Year, photo: CTK

The Czech Press Photo’s 2017 Photograph of the Year was taken by Slovak photographer Martin Bandzak and depicts a young boy standing on the shoulders of a crowd during a Hezbollah rally in Lebanon. Bandzak is the co-founder of Slovak charity MAGNA, which provides medical aid to crisis-ridden areas. He already won the Czech Press Photo competition in 2010 with a black and white photo of a girl injured in the Haitian earthquake. This time, he managed to win with a picture taken on a simple cell phone.

Czech Press Photo was founded in 1995, and was inspired by the renowned World Press Photo competition based in the Netherlands. Photos are exhibited at the Czech Press Photo centre right next to Prague’s famous astronomical clock in Old Town Square. Almost 500 photographers submitted around 7,000 photographs to this year’s competition.

Winning photograph in the 'News' category by Robert Barca, photo: CTK / Robert Barca

Radek Polák is spokesperson for Czech Press Photo, he told me about the winner of the “People in the News” photo series competition:

“One of the winners was Milan Jaroš from the Czech weekly magazine Respekt, who presented a series covering President Miloš Zeman’s visit to the regions…Czech Press Photo has eight categories – eight photo and also three video categories.”

The “News” photograph category was also won by a Slovak, namely Robert Barca, for a picture of a pro-government demonstration in Turkey over the summer. Czech events featured in the “People in the News” single picture category, with a photograph of a notorious meeting between President Miloš Zeman and Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka at Prague Castle taken by photographer Robert Sedmík featuring Zeman pointing at the PM with his cane.

Winning photograph in the 'People in the News' category by Robert Sedmík, photo: CTK / Robert Sedmík

Czech photographer Filip Jandourek won the “Nature, Science and Environment” category with a picture of two wild boars mating in a trash heap. Competition winner Martin Bandzak also won the “Portrait” category with a photograph of a Nicaraguan mother feeding her baby.