In Pictures
The world’s best photos of 2015
Black and white photo of refugee infant being passed under a razor-wire fence on Hungary-Serbia border wins top prize.
A haunting, moonlit image of a baby being passed by refugees underneath a razor-wire fence on the Hungary-Serbia border has won the prestigious World Press Photo award for 2015, organisers have said.
The black and white photo – which was never published – was taken by Australian photographer Warren Richardson last August near the border crossing point at Roszke in Hungary as refugees tried to get into Europe before Hungarian authorities could complete a secure fence along the length of the country’s border with Serbia.
“Had I used a flash, I would have given their position away to the Hungarian police,” said Richardson, who camped out for days on the border to document the passage of the refugees.
Needing to preserve his camera’s battery, Richardson did not see the image until he returned home to Budapest and began editing his pictures.
Jury member Vaughn Wallace, deputy photo editor for Al Jazeera America, called the image “incredibly powerful visually, but it’s also very nuanced”.
He said the photo “causes you to stop and consider the man’s face, consider the child. You see the sharpness of the barbed wire and the hands reaching out from the darkness.”
The contest drew 82,951 images from 5,775 photographers.
Associated Press photographer Daniel Ochoa de Olza won second place in the People Stories category with a series of portraits of young Spanish girls sitting in a decorated altar as part of the historic Las Mayas festival.
