Hong Kong photographer’s images of injured protesters win first prize in Sony World Photography Awards’ documentary section
- Chung Ming-ko’s series ‘Wounds Of Hong Kong’ show 24 men and women, some with scars and bandages, taken against a dramatic black background
- Chung says he wanted to draw attention to the brutality of the Hong Kong police’s treatment of anti-government protesters
Images of protesters injured during anti-government clashes have won Hong Kong photographer Chung Ming-ko first place in the documentary section of the Sony World Photography Awards.
Chung’s series “Wounds Of Hong Kong” show 24 men and women, some with scars and bandages, taken against a dramatic black background.
“While the scars and bruises may fade, we must remember what caused them,” says Chung. He says he wanted to draw attention to police brutality. “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
Pablo Albarenga, from Uruguay, was named photographer of the year with his series “Seeds of Resistance” showing photographs of landscapes in danger from mining and agribusinesses alongside portraits of the activists fighting to conserve them.
What hurt most was inside. [A secondary-school student,] Chu was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and was still in a trance when I met him three months after his injury ... A kid like him doesn’t deserve this
Other winners include British artist Tom Oldham with a black and white portrait of the fronman of alternative rock band the Pixies, Charles Thompson (whose stage name is Black Francis), 19-year-old Hsieh Hsien-pang from Taiwan, who scooped the youth photographer award, and South African photographer Brent Stirton who won the nature category for his series Pangolins in Crisis.