World Press Photo Auckland 2024

The World Press Photo Exhibition will return to Auckland from July 20 – August 11, 2024.

Brought to New Zealand by the Rotary Club of Auckland, the exhibition showcases the winning images of the World Press Photo competition, selected from over 60,000 entries from around the world.

The World Press Photo Contest has recognised professional press and documentary photographers since it began in 1955.

All profits from the 2024 Auckland event will go to the Turn Your Life Around (TYLA) Development Trust and Rotary youth programs.

Two Australians recognised at awards

Two Australians have taken out awards at the 2024 World Press Photo Contest, which honours the best examples of photojournalism each year.

Both works, which received awards in the South-East Asia and Oceania regions category, reflect on environmental concerns.

Eddie Jim’s image titled ‘Fighting, Not Sinking’ (pictured above), won the Singles category. The Age and Sydney Morning Herald photographer snapped the photo in Fiji in August 2023.

It shows community elder Lotomau Fiafia standing with his grandson John where he remembers the shoreline used to be when he was a boy – a point now underwater.

Aletheia Casey’s series of 29 images called ‘A Lost Place’ (pictured above) won the Open Format category.

A contest spokesperson said the series was “a striking meditation connecting Australia’s colonial past with its precarious climate future”.

“This project presents a series of manipulated and reconceptualised images, conveying the artist’s personal feelings of frustration and horror in response to the devastating 2019-20 wildfires in the state of New South Wales.”

The World Press Photo of the Year winner was Mohammed Salem for his photo titled ‘A Palestinian Woman Embraces the Body of Her Niece’.

The photographer describes this photo, taken just days after his own wife gave birth, as a “powerful and sad moment that sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip”.

It shows Inas Abu Maamar (36) cradling the body of her niece Saly (5), who was killed along with her mother and sister when an Israeli missile struck their home in Khan Younis, Gaza.

The jury commented on how the image was composed with care and respect, offering at once a metaphorical and literal glimpse into unimaginable loss.

PICTURED: Open Format Award winner ‘War Is Personal’ by Julia Kochetova, Ukraine. This project weaves together photographic images with poetry, audio clips, and music. As a whole, the project provides a singular, personal perspective on the unfortunately all-too-familiar images of war.