For more information
Hanna-Kaisa Hämäläinen
tel. +358 45 139 8216
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Raisa Kyllikki Karjalainen
tel. +358 50 3238397
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The results
The results of the Press Photos of the Year 2009 contest have been announced at the TR1 Exhibition Centre in Tampere 26.3.2010 18:00. The winners are:
PICTURE OF THE YEAR
Heidi Piiroinen, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki
PRESS PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR
Hannes Heikura, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki
PORTRAIT OF THE YEAR
Jukka Ritola, Aamulehti, Tampere
Honorary mention: Henrik Malmström, freelancer, Helsinki
NEWS PICTURE OF THE YEAR
Mika Ranta, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki
Honorary mention: Hannu Lindroos, Suomen Kuvalehti, Helsinki
SPORTS PICTURE OF THE YEAR
Tomi Glad, Savon Sanomat, Kuopio
DOMESTIC REPORTAGE OF THE YEAR
Heidi Piiroinen. Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki
FOREIGN REPORTAGE OF THE YEAR
Markus Jokela, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki
Honorary mention: Kai Sinervo, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki
THE IDEA OF THE YEAR
Markku Niskanen, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki
THE PHOTO ESSAY OF THE YEAR
Hannes Heikura, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki
Honorary mention: Henrik Malmström, freelancer, Helsinki
AUDIENCE CHOISE AWARD
Maija Tammi, freelancer, Tampere
For the fourth time the public had the change to vote on the Press Photographer of the Year. The jury selected five photographers for the Audience Choise Award. The finalists were: Hannes Heikura (Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki), Markus Jokela (Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki), Juha Metso (freelancer, Kotka), Heidi Piiroinen (Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki) and Maija Tammi (freelancer, Tampere). 2072 votes were cast and Maija Tammi was declared the winner of the Audience Choise Award 2009.
The jury has also chosen three candidates for the Fotofinlandia contest’s finals 2011 representing the Finnish Press Photographers Association. Fotofinlandia contest is organized by The Federation of Finnish Photographic Organisations, Finnfoto. The candidates are Hannes Heikura (photo essey), Heidi Piiroinen (domestic reportage) and Markus Henttonen (photo essey).
110 photographers took part in the Press Photos of the Year 2009 contest. Additionally, the amount of photos was the highest yet, the number at among 3000 entries.
The exhibition composed of the winning pictures and the contenders is on display from the 27st of March through to the 2nd of May 2010 at the TR1 Exhibition Centre in Tampere. The exhibition is an extensive selection of winners and runners-up, presenting around 120 photos from 41 photographers. The exhibition is organized, in cooperation, with the Finnish Press Photographers Association, Photographic Centre Nykyaika and Media Museum Rupriikki. Some of the pictures will also be on display at Newspaper Aamulehti’s lobby in Tampere (27.3.-2.5.2010) and at the Viktor Barsokevitsch Photographic Centre in Kuopio (4.-26.9.2010).
The jury of the contest were:
Jan Grarup, Photographer, Founder member of Noor Images, Danmark
Andrei Polikanov, Director of Photography, Russian Reporter Magazine, Russia
Merja Salo, Professor, The Aalto University School of Art and Design, Helsinki
Virpi Suutari, Documentary Film Director, Helsinki
The Press Photos of the Year 2009 will also be publishes in book form. The yearbook showcases the year’s award-winning press photos and creates a visual snapshot of what the Finnish press paid attention to in 2009. You can buy the book from the TR1 Exhibition Centre or order it from the Finnish Press Photographers Association web pages. The price is 15 € including postage. The Finnish Press Photographers has held the contest since 1962. The aim of the contest is to encapsulate the events of the news year and to uphold the prestige of press photography.
The main partner of Press Photos of the Year 2009 is Canon.
Additional information and the interview requests for the winners of the contest: The Finnish Press Photographers Association, Chairman Hanna-Kaisa Hämäläinen, tel. 045 139 8216, or Raisa Kyllikki Karjalainen, tel. 050 3238397 mail:
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COMMENTS OF THE JURY
Press Photo of the Year:
Heidi Piiroinen, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki.
Civic crusader Herbet Linto Retto Pawggabean examines forest destruction along the road leading to Teluk Meranti in Indonesia. Jury: An iconic photo. The jury ́s unanimous pick. According to the jury, climate change is one of the most important themes of the past year.
Photographer of the Year:
Hannes Heikura, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki.
The Photographer of the Year is a romantic and poetic photographer. He has the ability to capture impressive photos in several different areas, like politics, portraits and sports.
Portrait of the Year:
Jukka Ritola, Aamulehti, Tampere.
Vicar Marja-Sisko Aalto prepares to return to work in her parish. The story of Finland’s first openly transgender priest, Marja-Sisko, is important to the Finns. Without knowing the background, also the foreign members of the jury immediately reacted to the simple and powerful photo.
Portrait of the Year, Honorable mention:
Henrik Malmström, freelancer, Helsinki.
Jussi Rissanen, 25, from Rautavaara, in the morning near his home. There is an invisible threat in the photo. Even though the photo shows a hunter, it also shows the menace of killing.
News Photo of the Year:
Mika Ranta, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki.
Eveline Fadayel under threat of deportation from Finland. A very simple and discreet photo showcasing emotions. The photographer has succeeded in crystallizing immigration policy challenges in a single photo.
News Photo of the Year, Honorable mention:
Hannu Lindroos, Suomen Kuvalehti, Helsinki.
European Champion in figure skating, Laura Lepistö. Beautiful, a different news photo of an important sports event. This has news value, authenticity.
Sport Photo of the Year:
Tomi Glad, Savon Sanomat, Kuopio.
Weightlifter Johan Nyström prepares. Listening to his head and heart, the photographer has captured a sporting event in his own way. There is also sensitivity in the photo, which is unusual in sports photography.
Domestic Reportage of the Year:
Heidi Piiroinen, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki.
Dhuxul family. A coherent and poetic display of the life of Somalis living in Finland. An intimate and colorful story that touches everyone.
Foreign Reportage of the Year:
Markus Jokela, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki.
Little town on the prairie. The photographer has captured the spirit of small-town America where nothing happens. He makes the ordinary look a little extraordinary.
Foreign Reportage of the Year, Honorable mention:
Kai Sinervo, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki.
A wedding, Brighton, England. Cohesive, strong atmosphere.
Idea of the Year:
Markku Niskanen, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki.
Robert Mugabe It’s very difficult getting into and working in Zimbabwe – access to President Robert Mugabe is impossible. The photographer had a brilliant idea on how to photograph President Mugabe.
Photo Essay of the Year:
Hannes Heikura, Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki.
Recession. The photo essay irresistibly captivating to the viewer. The photographer has worked long and hard on the subject. You can feel every picture on your skin.
Photo Essay of the Year, Honorable mention:
Henrik Malmström, freelancer, Helsinki.
Long-distance relationship. Together, but usually alone. A powerful, personal photo essay.
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ARTICLES FROM THE PRESS PHOTOS OF THE YEAR 2009 BOOK
On a photo shoot with a big heart
The foreign duo of the four-member jury, Russian Reporter Magazine’s director of photography, Russian Andrei Polikanov, and Danish photographer Jan Grarup, are pleased with the Photo of the Year’s top contestants and with the jury’s collaboration. Before his current position, Polikanov was a photo editor at Time magazine’s Moscow bureau for 12 years.
A founding member of the international Noor photo agency, Danish photographer Grarup has been photographing in war zones and crisis and disaster areas for 22 years.
More soul and emotion
Polikanov says that a photographer’s photos won’t amount to much unless the image he/she is capturing is something that holds some personal meaning. ”A camera is bidirectional. If a professional photographer doesn’t feel it, he can still produce good, technically sound photos, but that’s about it. It’s really important to go into the shoot with a big heart and to thoroughly focus on the subject,” Polikanov says. According to Polikanov, the routine images in the Press Photo of the Year contest, like the press conference photos, showed good professional quality almost across the board. But in some categories, the level of photo journalism remained a bit bland – unedited and constricted in scope.
Absence of major news topics
Photographer Grarup is very surprised that the major news topics of last year were barely seen in the contest – both in the foreign and domestic photos. The crises that prevailed around the world – the economic recession, the rise of environmental issues leading up to the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, the swine flu fears – and the photo journalism articles referencing them were few and far between.
”This indicates that the money people at magazines and newspapers weren’t sending photographers out into the world, photo editors weren’t doing a good job and maybe even a lack of interest in those topics on the part of the photographers. Although it may be that many photographers just didn’t submit photos of the ’obvious’ topics,” Grarup and Polikanov say.
They also note how everyday life in Finland, social issues and social commentary were also in the background in the contest photos. ”A country’s everyday life in its diversity must also be documented. It is through this that people take a stand and influence today’s issues,” Grarup and Polikanov encourage.
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More time would be a luxury
”More time” is Heidi Piiroinen’s immediate reply when asked what she as a press photographer needs the most. She is a double winner in 2009: The photographer of the Press Photo of the Year and Domestic Reportage of the Year. Helsingin Sanomat press photographer Piiroinen says she is very critical of her own photos.
”Often it just feels that there isn’t enough time to get to know the person or subject being photographed. I demand a lot from myself, and I feel that time always runs out. It’s great if just the two of us, the person being photographed and me, can spend some time together during the photo shoot. Then I can build a relationship with the person, create some interaction and in this way also give more of myself.”
Piiroinen says she spent three days with the Dhuxul family and its 7 children, immersed in their daily life – from the morning porridge to the evening chores. She describes her winning photo reportage as ”a beginning to something new,” the kind of work she definitely wants to continue with.
For Piiroinen, the sense of being present is most important when she looks at magazine photos, thumbs through photography books or visits photo exhibitions. ”How devoted the photographer is to the situation also has something to do with that presence. The photographer too must be present in the situation. In fact, it is probably the best photos that portray the convergence. Naturally, what each photographer sees in the situation that they are shooting is also a very personal thing. A photo reveals so much about its photographer,” Piiroinen says.
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Photos are worth of studying
The allegory of the press photos of the year and the press photo categories have become more diverse from the 1960s through the 2000s. There has been a shift from metaphoric to metonymic, from the simplified to the detailed, from notoriety to private individuals, and from black-and-white to color.
The press photos of the year have clearly become more diverse from the first year of the contest in 1962 to 2004, Mirja Sipinen sums up in her master’s thesis (Aikansa kuvia [Photos of the times], University of Tampere, Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, May 2006).
These days, as a joint correspondent in Moscow for STT (the Finnish News Agency) and MTV, Sipinen compares the allegory appearing in the Photos of the Year to the structural and contentual means of expression used in them. She categorizes the photos into metaphorical and metonymical and metaphorically-neutral photos. She also categorizes photos by the main character, simplicity, humor and seriousness.
A metaphor is often described as a comparison without the word ’like.’ In Lauri Kautia’s winning photo of 1969, a pile of butter in front of Minister Mauno Koivisto is Finland’s butter mountain. Caj Bremer’s winning photo of 1962, President Urho Kekkonen with his hand in the inside pocket of his suit is Finland’s Napoleon. These kind of metaphors are concrete, dramatic, often funny, and invite idiomatic simplification.
A metonym, in turn, is part of an entity, a window to a boundless reality. For example, Eetu Sillanpää’s Tulviva Pohjanmaa [Flooding Ostrobothnia] is not entirely in the winning photo of 2004, but part of it is – in someone’s living room. The manner of expres-
sion allows for an everyday, illustrative and declaratory style – the photo is rich in details. Metonymic photos also feature more private individuals than metaphoric photos. The metaphoric celebration of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s turned into a metonymic victory at the turn of the 1990s. The number of metaphoric and metonymic photos has equalized, i.e. the contest now allows for a more diverse presentation.
Sipinen believes that photos, especially press photos, are appreciated specifically for their factual value. ”Even the slightest suspicion of image manipulation instantly diminishes the photo’s key content and erodes the emotional charge it creates – i.e. all of the elements we want to see and look at in a photo.”
Sipinen urges people to think about how vague the line in image manipulation is. ”The huge possibilities of image processing and the fact that photos are available left and right leads to more and more being demanded from photo professionals. The content requirements of a photo, the visual elements and the choice of just the right moment become even more accentuated,” Sipinen says.
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