Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) has announced the winners of the 2010 Microfinance Photography Contest in which South Asian photographers dominated the top three places, but the other 20 winners come from all regions of the world.
The first prize has been won by Mohammed Rakibul Hasan for his entry “The Tannery Industry” beating approximately 2,000 entries from professional and nonprofessional photographers around the world submitted for the contest. The photograph was taken by Hasan depicting hundreds of hides turn golden in the sun, in his hometown of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where there are many small tanneries. For the last three years Hasan’s entries have been reaching the final round of the Contest, but it is the first time he has won the top prize. Hasan works as a freelance photographer while he studies for a post graduate diploma in photojournalism at Adeneo de Manila University in the Philippines.
Hasan’s entry won out over nearly 2,000 entries from professional and nonprofessional photographers around the world in the 2010 CGAP Microfinance Photography Contest.
This is also the first time when photographs from China received special mention award among the winners.
Winner of the Second Place is also from Bangladesh. Entry “Jute Monster,” by Jashim Salam, depicts an unusual perspective of the reviving jute industry in Bangladesh. Salam is a student at the South Asian Institute of Photography in Bangladesh pursuing diploma in photojournalism. This was the first time he has entered the Contest.
The judges commended four photographs for Special Mention, all of which resonated for their narrative and mood, as well as technical composition. “Rickshaw Puller,” by Joy Mukherjee from West Bengal, India shows microcredit client Ibrahim helping people cross the Matla River at low tide. “Food Workshop,” by Chinese photographer Tian An, captures the light and heat pouring through as the owner of a small food store griddles Chinese pancakes.
Sudipto Das’ photograph of a grandfather telling tales to his grandchildren in West Bengal was commended by the judges for catching a unique moment.
Huaxin Hu from China got a Special Mention for “Selling Geese,” an amusing portrait of a farmer and his son carrying geese to market in Zhejiang province in China.
Whether it’s the anxiety of a milk seller in Pakistan who awaits the results of tests on a sample of milk she’s selling, the energy of a tofu vendor who set up a temporary shop at a building site in China, or the nonchalance of a fish trader in Muscat, Oman, handing over a whopping tuna to the butcher, the photographs are startling portrayals of people’s ingenuity and capacity to make their own livelihoods in starkly differing circumstances. From Madagascar to Madhya Pradesh, India, from a candlemaker in the Philippines, to the clothes seller on the streets of Breslau, Poland, the images show the entrepreneurial spirit and energy of human enterprise the world over.
According to judges, the quality of the photographs was the best so far in the fourth year of the contest.
Source: http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/template.rc/1.26.16410/
