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Nikon Photo Contest 2020-2021 Winners Announced

Posted on Oct 4, 2021

Submissions to this year’s competition share diverse perspectives, emotions and experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic

Founded over fifty years ago, the Nikon Photo Contest is one of the world’s largest photography competitions. The 2020-2021 contest attracted 65,062 submissions from approximately 26,000 people from 150 countries and regions around the world. The winners of the Grand Prize awards for each competition category were selected from the Excellence Award winning works.

The photo competition Grand Prize was awarded to an image from the Open Category called “Radiance”, by Amin Nazari from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which depicts an elderly person receiving treatment for COVID-19 in a hospital in Iran.

Nikon Photo Contest 2020-2021 Grand Prize Winner
“Radiance”, Amin Nazar / Nikon Photo Contest 2020-2021

The short film competition Grand Prize went to a piece from the Next Generation category called “Escaping from Karma”, by REI KURODA from Japan. The piece explores the concept of liberation from large societal structures and constrictions in light of the enormous changes to daily life brought about by the pandemic. It also touches upon issues such as feminism, race and nationality.

Lead Judge Neville Brody observed that many of the entries provided insight into private experiences, emotions and perspectives offering varied interpretations of the world. “We saw some very moving, highly emotional entries this year that stunned the judges — images of personal suffering, and of beauty, of captured lives, of joy, and of magic. It’s been an extremely difficult year for every individual, and to create works that somehow communicate these challenges shows that photography and video are very powerful tools to capture these narratives.”

The winning images will be put on display in public exhibitions around the world, beginning with an exhibition in Shibuya, Tokyo from 5th – 18th October, progressing to New York from 18th – 31st October and concluding in London from 1st – 14th November. The images can also be viewed in an online exhibition on the Nikon Photo Contest 2020-2021 website from 5th October.

For more information and to find where the public street exhibitions will be held, head over to the Nikon Photo Contest website here.

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