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Canon congratulates Pietro Masturzo, a freelance photographer from Italy, for winning World Press Photo of the Year 2009. Pietro’s image, showing women shouting in protest from a rooftop in Tehran, was shot on a Canon EOS digital SLR camera. Nigel Taylor, Marketing Communications Director, Canon Consumer Imaging Group, Europe, comments: “As the nature in which journalists tell their stories continues to evolve, the power of image has never been so important. Canon’s longstanding relationship with World Press Photo is driven by this passion and ability to enable anyone to tell a story. Each of this year’s winners has demonstrated a unique and incredible zeal in the way they tell their own and other’s stories and we would like to pass on our heartfelt congratulations to all of them.” World Press Photo receives support from the Dutch Postcode Lottery and is sponsored worldwide by Canon and TNT.

Related post: World Press Photo of the Year 2009 Winners Announced

Canon Press Release

Canon congratulates World Press Photo of the Year winner

United Kingdom / Republic of Ireland, 15th February 2010: Canon congratulates Pietro Masturzo, a freelance photographer from Italy, for winning World Press Photo of the Year 2009, which was announced on 12th February.  Pietro’s image, showing women shouting in protest from a rooftop in Tehran, was chosen from a total of 101,960 images. 

Now in its 53rd year, the World Press Photo Contest is universally acknowledged as the world’s premier competition for photojournalism and its accolades are coveted by photographers across the world. This year, a record 5,847 professional photographers from 128 countries submitted images – an increase of 6 per cent from last year.  Canon has been a global corporate sponsor of World Press Photo since 1992.

Nigel Taylor, Marketing Communications Director, Canon Consumer Imaging Group, Europe, comments: “As the nature in which journalists tell their stories continues to evolve, the power of image has never been so important. Canon’s longstanding relationship with World Press Photo is driven by this passion and ability to enable anyone to tell a story. Each of this year’s winners has demonstrated a unique and incredible zeal in the way they tell their own and other’s stories and we would like to pass on our heartfelt congratulations to all of them.”

The international jury of picture editors, photographers and press agency representatives – chaired by Ayperi Karabuda Ecer, the Vice President of Pictures at Reuters – spent two weeks selecting the winners before awarding prizes in 10 themed categories to 63 photographers of 23 nationalities, with one image being selected as World Press Photo of the Year 2009.

For the first time, the 2010 contest focused in depth on three categories: Sports, Nature and Portraits by creating specific juries for these categories. One judge from each of these categories was then invited to take part in the final round of judging.

The winning image was taken in June 2009 following the contested presidential elections in Iran and was shot on a Canon EOS Digital SLR.  Pietro Masturzo will receive a cash prize of €10.000 from World Press Photo at an awards ceremony in Amsterdam on 2nd May. In addition, Canon Europe will provide with a Canon EOS Digital SLR camera and lens kit.

An exhibition of the prize-winning World Press Photo images will be shown from Friday 23rd April until the 20th June 2010, in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam.  Subsequently the exhibition will tour to some 100 cities in 45 countries around the world.

World Press Photo receives support from the Dutch Postcode Lottery and is sponsored worldwide by Canon and TNT.

Further information about World Press Photo is available at http://www.worldpressphoto.org.

An up-to-date exhibition schedule is also available online: http://www.worldpressphoto.org/exhibitions

Photo credit: Pietro Masturzo, Italy

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