About
The News Photo Awards is an international competition for professional news photographers, organized by the Russian news agency TASS for the second time.
In 2020, the contest was called “Overcoming COVID” dedicated to weathering the coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, we invited photographers to show how the world around them is changing.
We’ve received nearly 5,000 submission and will announce the short list on February 15, 2022. The winners of the contest will be announced on March 22, 2022 at Expo 2020 Dubai.
This year, the contest consists of 4 categories: News, People & Lifestyle, Healthcare, Environment. Within each category, the judges will select a single photo and a series.
The Grand Prize for the best overall photo is $10,000, and $3000 for winner in each category.
Contest History
The first News Photo Awards contest was held in 2021, titled Overcoming COVID. The contest was dedicated to the fight against the pandemic and the heroic work of photographers covering it.
The competition ran from October to December 2020, received over 4,000 submissions. Photographers from 84 countries took part in the contest, with China, India, Malaysia, Iran, Russia, Italy, Turkey, and the United States among the participation leaders.
The jury of the first competition came from leading internation media holding such as Associated Press (USA), Reuters (UK), AFP (France), Xinhua (China), Kyodo News (Japan), TASS (Russia), ANSA (Italy), PA Media (UK), NOOR (Netherlands), Yonhap (South Korea), Anadolu (Turkey).
The 2021 Grand Prize winner was Brais Lorenzo Couto a photojournalist from the Spanish international news agency EFE, with his picture "Birthday". Photographer Ilya Pitalev from Russia Today (Sputnik/Russia) won the Best Photo category for for his picture "The Sacrament", while a reporter from a UK-based news agency known as South West News Service (SWNS), Adam Gray, emerged as the winner in the Best Photo Series category. The jury recognized his series of images called "In the epicenter of COVID-19" as the best. The winning images were complied into an exhibit that was showcased throughout the year at various events throughout Russia such as the 2021 St.Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Eastern Economic Forum, the Moscow Urban Forum, and at the Life with Viruses exhibition at the All-Russian Exhibition Center.
The photographs were also displayed at street stands and media screens located throughout the streets of the Russian capital.