Amsterdam: Agence France-Presse photographer Ronaldo Schemidt won the prestigious 2018 World Press Photo of the Year Award on Thursday with a fiery image of a masked Venezuelan protester which judges said symbolised a country “burning”.
Schemidt’s photo, taken during violent clashes with riot police and protesters demonstrating against President Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Caracas last year, invoked an instant emotion, the judges said.
AFP also scooped other awards, with London-based stringer Oliver Scarff taking first prize in the Sports-Singles category and Caracas-based AFP photographer Juan Barreto coming third in the Spot News-Stories category.
Mexico-based Schemidt was covering the demonstrations for AFP in May 2017 when the then 28-year-old Victor Salazar went up in flames as he and other protesters were trying to destroy a police motorbike and the gas tank exploded in his face.
“I felt the explosion behind me and I felt the heat and at that moment I turned around, already shooting, but without seeing what was going on,” Schemidt said.
His searing image shows Salazar — who is wearing a mask — running as a cloak of fire envelopes his body. He survived the incident with first and second-degree burns, the competition’s organisers said.
For the chair of the jury, Magdalena Herrera, Geo France’s director of photography, it is “a classical photo” which has “an instantaneous energy and dynamic.”
But Thursday’s prize is a bittersweet recognition for Schemidt, 46, who is Venezuelan himself, even though he left the country 18 years ago.
Accepting his award and speaking in Spanish, Schemidt said he dedicated to photo “to his family and all the people of Venezuela.”
The seven-member jury heaped praise on the image. “It’s quite symbolic,” said Whitney C Johnson, National Geographic’s deputy director of photography.
“The man, he has a mask on his face. He’s come to sort of represent not just himself and himself on fire, but sort of this idea of Venezuela burning.”
Another jury member, Bulent Kilic, AFP’s chief photographer in Turkey, highlighted “one small detail in the picture. There was a gun (painted) on the wall. It reads ‘paz’. It means peace.”
“That also makes this picture strong,” he said. “This is an immensely powerful photo and this is not an easy picture to take,” Lars Boering, World Press Photo’s director said after the ceremony.
Schemidtbeat off stiff competition as overall winner, including images capturing the Rohingya crisis, the war in Iraq and the aftermath of a terror attack in London.
This year, judges had to select winners from more than 73,000 pictures, sent in by some 4,548 photographers from 125 countries.
Schemidt’s picture also won in the Spot News-Singles category.
In other honours for AFP, Scarff’s monochrome photograph of English teams grappling for the ball during the historical annual Royal Shrovetide Football Match at Ashbourne in Derbyshire won the Sports-Singles category. — AFP
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