Spanish news agency EFE photographer Brice Lorenzo Couto won the “Overcoming Covid” photography competition, which was organized in Moscow, at the suggestion of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The winner received a cash prize of $ 10,000 at a ceremony organized by the Russian “TASS” agency at its headquarters on Thursday, to announce the names of the winners.
Koto said: “I am very proud and happy to have received this award, and of course during the Corona virus epidemic, I would like to congratulate all my colleagues from other photographic agencies, and all my friends for giving me the opportunity to present these works.”
“I would also like to congratulate this wonderful woman who was able to photograph her,” he added, noting that “sometimes, a single shot can feel better than a complete story told by a skilled journalist … This is the uniqueness of a true talented photography.”
For his part, Chief Executive Officer of “TASS” Sergey Mikhailov said: “Exactly a year ago, the World Health Organization announced the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, and although Covid has not yet been completely defeated, we are definitely heading towards victory over the epidemic.”
Mikhailov pointed out that “the idea of the competition was born about a year ago when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed, in an interview with the First Deputy Director General of the” TASS “agency, Mikhail Gosman, to conduct an international competition and choose the image that would embody the movement towards victory over Covid-19.
He added, “We are very grateful to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for this idea. The jury focused on the work of professionals in their field, who through their cameras the whole world saw cities desolate after everyone got used to seeing them crowded.”
Photojournalist Ilya Petalev from Russia Sigodnia agency won the best photo award, and Adam Gray, the North West News Service reporter, won the best photo series, with each receiving $ 3,000.
In turn, the editor-in-chief of the RT TV network and the “Russia Sigodnia” news agency, Margarita Simonyan, said that those filmed in the midst of the Covid epidemic are simulating in their mission war correspondents, since they “filmed before they had antibodies. Before the invention of vaccines, they risked their lives every minute.” Every day, every hour, in order to convey to the world what is happening with this epidemic, what is happening in their countries. ”
“Lavrov should have chosen only one picture, but in the end he chose four pictures,” Alexey Zaitsev, Deputy Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
He added: “The spread of Coronavirus infection has affected all areas of our lives, from politics and economics to science and culture, however, it is a pleasure that even in this difficult time of telecommunications, thanks to the efforts of professional photographers and photojournalists, we can see and feel more prominent. Events. ”
Source: “TASS”