World Press Photo is celebrating 70 years, with a special section inside the exhibition, looking back at the winners over the decades. One is left to wonder how much we learn from history, looking at pictures from countries which are in war for decades, and keep appearing on the pictures all the way to these days.
The exhibition in Amsterdam is set in the most central part of the city, De Nieuwe Kerk (The New Church), which is often repurposed for exhibitions. The photographs displayed are the winners of 3 different main categories: singles, stories and long-term projects. This year, the jury evaluated 59,320 entries from 3,778 photographers from 141 countries.
Image credits: Tomek Dersu Aaron
World Press Photo of the Year
The overall winner of the contest is a picture of Mahmoud Ajjour, Aged Nine, by a Palestinian photographer, Samar Abu Elouf, who works for The New York Times. The boy was severely injured in an attack on Gaza City in March 2024. While helping his family to flee, an explosion severed his arm and mutilated the other. Based on the UN estimations, by December 2024, the most child amputees per capita in the world are in Gaza. The photographer, also from Gaza, lives in the same apartment building in Doha, Qatar as Mahmoud.
“The Photo of the Year is a portrait of a boy wearing a tank top; he’s facing a window and a warm light shines on him casting a soft shadow on one side of his face. His young age, and beautiful features, are really in contrast with his melancholy expression. You then realize with a shock that he is missing his arms,” said Lucy Conticello, the Director of Photography for Le Monde’s M Magazine, and 2025 Contest global Jury chair.
“This young boy’s life deserves to be understood, and this picture does what great photojournalism can do: provide a layered entry point into a complex story, and the incentive to prolong one’s encounter with that story. In my opinion, this image by Samar Abu Elouf was a clear winner from the start,” said Conticello.
Controversial Russian photographer uninvited, but remains awarded
After awarding him a prize, the World Press Photo uninvited a Russian photographer Mikhail Tereschenko from the award ceremony. He was awarded for a picture of the protest in Tbilisi, Georgia, while working for the Russian state news agency TASS. Reuters and Getty images have stopped collaborating with TASS, due to sharing disinformation and violating their policy. The protests in Georgia have started to fight against the pro-Russian ruling party, and journalists in the country are facing violence for covering the protests. Georgian photographers were then angry that a photographer working for Russia’s regime was awarded.
While not revoking the award, citing the fair jury process and merits of his work, Tereschenko was uninvited from the ceremony. “Given the increased tensions on the European continent, at this stage we are no longer able to facilitate a guest from a state-controlled Russian organisation,” the statement reads on the World Press Photo website.
Additionally, World Press Photo also distanced itself from Tereschenko’s comments after winning the awards, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and using the phrase “liberation of Mariupol”. The city remains under Russian occupation.
This was a second controversy, following the pairing of a photo of a Ukrainian child (titled Beyond the Trenches), suffering panic attacks after fleeing, and a picture of a pro-Russian soldier suffering after amputations (Underground Field Hospital). Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed concern over this framing. World Press Photo issued a statement, correcting the connection between the suffering of war consequences of a 6-year-old child and a soldier belonging to the invading forces.
More about the selection process
First, the regional jury of 5 professionals prepares a selection for the region. The regions are as follows: Africa; West, Central, and South Asia; Europe; North and Central America; South America; and Asia Pacific and Oceania. Then, a global jury takes over, made up of a jury member per region, with a global jury chair deciding the final winners.
Interestingly, in the first round, no information about the photographer is given to the jury. This is to ensure regional and gender representation and to maintain balance between the views from within the context of the region and external views.
World Press Photo is an independent non-profit organization originally founded in the Netherlands in 1955. Even though the exhibition in Amsterdam is well-known, the exhibitions travel to over 80 locations a year. Their calendar tells you all the locations, from Vienna, through Budapest, and Barcelona all the way to Auckland, New Zealand.
Memorial for journalists
Press freedom is a topic every year, in a separate section, somewhat symbolically positioned at the very head of the church, behind the altar. In collaboration with Free Press Unlimited, Reporters Without Borders, and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) present panels on press freedom index. The main Memorial for Journalists at the exhibitions shows long pieces of fabric with names of over 1,600 journalists that were killed with connection to their work since 1992.
Image credits: Tomek Dersu Aaron
“In 2024, at least 103 journalists were killed worldwide, making it the deadliest year on record since the CPJ began tracking journalist fatalities over three decades ago. Gaza stands out as the most dangerous place in the world for journalists with 76 journalists killed there in 2024,” states as the opening in the Memorial.
Not only the deaths, but also imprisonment, self-censorship, and violence spread as experiences of journalists in countries with rising authoritarianism. Many more then continue with the work of their imprisoned colleagues. The exhibition portrays the most pressing global issues through the lens of photography which in many cases just by the means of making issues visible, aids the fight for freedoms.