TEHRAN -- Iranian photographer Ebrahim Noruzi has won two awards at the World Photo Press 2013.
The winners of the world’s largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest were announced on Friday
Noruzi won the first prize of the Observed Portraits Section for his photo collection “Victims of Forced Love”.
The collection depicts the aftermath of an attack in Iran, during which a man poured acid over the faces of his wife, Somayyeh Mehri, and his two daughters, Rana and Nazanin, while they were sleeping at home in a village in the southeastern city of Bam in 2012, after Somayyeh filed for divorce.
Somayyeh lost her sight in one eye. The skin across her face and arms is covered with rough, discolored scars. Her younger daughter, Rana, now at 3, has been disfigured and also lost one of her eyes. The older daughter, Nazanin, was injured less severely.
Noruzi also won the second prize at the Staged Portraits Stories Section for his photo collection “Mournful”.
The collection features the rituals of mourning season of Muharram in Lorestan Province, especially in Khoramabad in Iran.
Born in 1980 in Tehran, Noruzi began working as a professional photographer in 2004 with the Fars News Agency.
His photographs have appeared nationally and internationally, in such publications as The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, and have been distributed by Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, Reuters, United Press International and the European Press Photo Agency.
World Press Photo is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The awards ceremony is held in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.
After the contest, the prizewinning photographs are assembled into a traveling exhibition that is visited by over a million people in 40 countries.
SB/YAW
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