Coronavirus hug image, called World Press Photo of the Year

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands (AP) – A photo symbolizing the “love and compassion” of an 85-year-old Brazilian woman receiving her first hug in five months from a nurse through a transparent “hug curtain” was named World Press Photo Thursday.

The choice of a winning photo depicting the global pandemic was almost inevitable for the contest covering a year in which news from around the world was dominated by the virus that killed nearly 3 million people, including more than 360,000 in Brazil.

The image of the Danish photographer Mads Nissen captured the moment when Rosa Luzia Lunardi was hugged by the nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza at the Viva Bem nursing home in Sao Paulo on August 5th.

A transparent plastic curtain – its yellow edges folded into a shape similar to a pair of butterfly wings – provides protection, as does the face mask of the nurse.

“This iconic image of COVID-19 memorizes the most extraordinary moment of our lives, everywhere,” said jury member Kevin WY Lee. “I read vulnerability, loved ones, loss and separation, disappearance, but, more importantly, survival – they all came in one graphic image. If you look at the picture long enough, you will see wings: a symbol of flight and hope. ”

Nissen’s image for Panos Pictures and the Danish daily Politiken also won first prize in the prestigious General News Singles competition.

“The main message of this image is empathy. It’s love and compassion, “said Nissen in a comment released by the contest organizers.

“It’s a very, very difficult, gloomy situation and then, in that horror, in that suffering, I think this image also brings some light,” Nissen said at an online awards ceremony, after being told that won the prize and the accompanying 5,000 euro ($ 6,000) prize.

The second place in the category was a much gloomier COVID-19 image – the body of a suspected coronavirus victim wrapped in plastic in a hospital in Indonesia, on April 18, by Indonesian photographer Joshua Irwandi.

The pandemic even reached the category of singles for the environment, the American photographer Ralph Pace winning for the image of a curious sea lion from California swimming towards a face mask that goes underwater at the Breakwater diving site in Monterey.

The judges analyzed 74,470 photos of 4,315 photographers before selecting the winners in eight categories, including general news, sports, media and portraits.

The photographic story of the year in the World Press was given to Italian documentary photographer Antonio Faccilongo, who works for Getty Reportage, for a series entitled “Habibi” about Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons who remove their semen from detention facilities in hopes of raising a family.

The winner of the Spot News Singles category was an image that embodies the debate about the race in the United States. The photo by Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post shows a white man and a black woman who disagree with the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, DC, which depicts a freed slave kneeling at the feet of Abraham Lincoln.

The Black Lives Matter also presented the series of Associated Press photographer John Minchillo about the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, who received third prize in the Spot News Stories category, won by Italian Lorenzo Tugnoli who worked for Contrasto for a series of devastating explosion images of the port in Beirut.

The category “Contemporary Issues” was won by Russian photographer Alexey Vasilyev with a series about the film industry in the Sakha region of northeastern Russia. Associated Press photographer Maya Alleruzzo took second place in the category with a story about the Islamic State group enslaving Yazidi women in Iraq.