Photo caption: A young girl passes the body of a man assassinated in Cucuta, Colombia. The city has suffered a wave of killings at the hands of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group. The killings continue even months after the AUC supposedly disarmed in the Cucuta region aspart of peace negotiations with the Colombian government. 9 March 2005. © Stephen Ferry
World Press Photo and Human Rights Watch are pleased to announce that the American photographer Stephen Ferry has been awarded the first Tim Hetherington Grant, set up to celebrate the legacy of the photojournalist and filmmaker killed in Libya earlier this year. The annual grant of €20.000 was given for Ferry’s project “’Violentology: A Manual of the Colombian Conflict”, chosen by a selection committee from among 222 applications by photographers of 56 nationalities.
“Violentology: A Manual of the Colombian Conflict” focuses on the history and current dynamics of the war in Colombia, while exposing the role of the distinct parties in the conflict. Colombia suffers one of the longest-running guerilla wars in the world with over 3.5 million people forced to flee the violence. The photographer saw that no comprehensive photographic work existed on the war and decided to move to Colombia. Now, after a decade of photographic fieldwork, the project will be widely distributed across three platforms: an exhibition; a book; and selected chapters in the form of booklets free of charge available as a PDF. Read more about the project here.
The judging panel of the first Tim Hetherington Grant consisted of photographers, editors and representatives from World Press Photo and Human Rights Watch: Christopher Anderson, Magnum photographer; James Brabazon, journalist and documentary filmmaker; Veronica Matushaj, Human Rights Watch director of photography; Michiel Munneke, managing director World Press Photo; and Jamie Wellford, senior photo editor Newsweek. Adriaan Monshouwer, founder of Picture Inside, served as secretary during the selection process. Judging took place at the World Press Photo office in Amsterdam and Veronica Matushaj judged from New York, USA.
Reviewing the submissions, the selection committee was looking for qualities that also defined Hetherington’s career: work that operates on multiple platforms and in a variety of formats; that crosses boundaries between breaking news and long-term investigation; and that demonstrates a consistent moral commitment to the lives and stories of the photographic subjects. The judges commented: “As Tim Hetherington immersed himself in West Africa, spending many years working and living in Liberia, so Stephen Ferry has dedicated himself to covering conflict in Colombia. Ferry is not only committed to creating an important historical record, he is also generating innovative approaches for disseminating that record within the community he documents, as well as to a worldwide audience.”
The Tim Hetherington Grant is a joint initiative of World Press Photo and Human Rights Watch, and is supported by Tim’s parents. The grant is intended to support a photographer in completing an existing project on a human rights theme. The application process was open to all professional photographers who have participated in a World Press Photo competition between 2008 and 2011.