People, 2nd prize stories. Young girls between the age of 7 and 11 are chosen every year as 'Maya' for the 'Las Mayas', a festival derived from pagan rites celebrating the arrival of spring, in the town of Colmenar Viejo, Spain. The girls are required to sit still for a couple of hours in a decorated altar.Daniel Ochoa de Olza, The Associated Press
The 2015 World Press Photo winners have been announced, rolling out a slew of last year’s top portrait photos.
Some, like Matic Zorman’s image of a child covered with a raincoat while waiting behind bars at a refugee camp in Serbia, are heart-wrenching; others are more raw, including the mine worker taking a cigarette break in Burkina Faso. Kazuma Obara’s gripping photo story of a girl who was victim to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was a haunting look at the life of a victim he calls “the invisible girl.” Another piece looks at young girls required to sit still for a couple of hours in a decorated altar.
The images, selected by the jury of the 58th annual World Press Photo contest, were among 82,912 images submitted by hundreds of press photographers to eight different categories, including Sports, Nature and News.
People, 1st prize singles. A child is covered with a raincoat while she waits in line to register at a refugee camp in Preševo, Serbia, Oct. 7, 2015.Matic ZormanPeople, 2nd prize singles. A mine worker takes a smoke break before going back into the pit. Miners in Bani face harsh conditions and exposure to toxic chemicals and heavy metals. Image taken in Bani, Burkina Faso, on Nov. 20, 2015.Matjaz Krivic
People, 3rd prize singles. Portrait of a Syrian refugee family in a camp in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, on Dec. 15, 2015. The empty chair in the photograph represents a family member who has either died in the war or whose whereabouts are unknown.Dario MitidieriPeople, 1st prize stories. "Recently, I just realised that I was not guilty. This is nobody's fault. I'm working on it, and everything is much better. I understand that all the worst is over, and now I'm trying to reestablish contact with my parents. They thought that I grew up very strong and independent. But it is not so.
Now it’s like I just came back to life and I'm a child again. It’s interesting for me to touch, feel, play, go on a picnic. I just learned how to ride a bike this year."Kazuma ObaraPeople, 1st prize stories. The world’s worst nuclear accident happened on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Just 5 months after the disaster, a girl was born in Kiev just 100 km south from Chernobyl. The wind included a great amount of radioactive elements, and the girl became one of the victims of the tragedy. This series of pictures represent the last 30 years of the life of that invisible girl. All pictures taken on old Ukrainian color negative films, which were found in the city of Pripyat, located 5 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. "My mother said that it was a typically quiet day, warm and windy. She and my father opened the window and they felt completely safe on the day of the explosion.Kazuma ObaraPeople, 1st prize stories. "I was born just 5 months after the day of the explosion. I was a very sickly child and I remember feeling like something was wrong, not growing like a normal child. When I was born I was quickly admitted into the intensive care unit. I had cramps and I was very weak. Half of my childhood, I spent in hospital without receiving a diagnosis. I was treated for bronchitis, then pneumonia, and then neuroses."Kazuma ObaraPeople, 1st prize stories. "Symptoms became strong when I was 19 years old. I had a very strong heart beat and it accelerated. A normal rhythm is 60-70 beats per minute. Mine was beating at 120-130 and this caused a very strong tremor in my hands. I was studying to be an architect at the Architectural Department and I realised that the tremors were preventing me from working, preventing me from completing my course. I could not understand the reason. It was very scary because architecture requires special attention, special care, and I could not understand why I was producing bad work. That was something very frightening for me. It was terrible."Kazuma ObaraPeople, 2nd prize stories. Young girls between the age of 7 and 11 are chosen every year as 'Maya' for the 'Las Mayas', a festival derived from pagan rites celebrating the arrival of spring, in the town of Colmenar Viejo, Spain. The girls are required to sit still for a couple of hours in a decorated altar.Daniel Ochoa de Olza, The Associated PressPeople, 2nd prize stories. Young girls between the age of 7 and 11 are chosen every year as 'Maya' for the 'Las Mayas', a festival derived from pagan rites celebrating the arrival of spring, in the town of Colmenar Viejo, Spain. The girls are required to sit still for a couple of hours in a decorated altar.Daniel Ochoa de Olza, The Associated PressPeople, 2nd prize stories. Young girls between the age of 7 and 11 are chosen every year as 'Maya' for the 'Las Mayas', a festival derived from pagan rites celebrating the arrival of spring, in the town of Colmenar Viejo, Spain. The girls are required to sit still for a couple of hours in a decorated altar.Daniel Ochoa de Olza, The Associated PressPeople, 2nd prize stories. Young girls between the age of 7 and 11 are chosen every year as 'Maya' for the 'Las Mayas', a festival derived from pagan rites celebrating the arrival of spring, in the town of Colmenar Viejo, Spain. The girls are required to sit still for a couple of hours in a decorated altar.Daniel Ochoa de Olza, The Associated Press
