IAFOR Documentary Photography Award | Winners 2017

This year’s IAFOR Documentary Photography Award received over 150 submissions from more than 30 countries – a diverse crop of entries featuring creative interpretations from a variety of international perspectives on the theme of “History, Story, Narrative”.

The high standards the Award has seen in previous years were once again maintained, and from this competitive field the judges selected Iranian-Canadian freelance photojournalist Kiana Hayeri, who is currently based out of Kabul, Afghanistan, covering the region, as this year’s Grand Prize Winner in recognition of her outstanding work. She receives this well-deserved award for her project Single Mothers of Afghanistan, which focuses on the single mothers of Afghanistan told through photographs, a humane story picturing another side of life in a war-torn country.

Congratulations to Kiana on this fantastic achievement.

Kiana receives the following as part of her Grand Prize package:

Congratulations also to Christian Werner (Second Place) from Germany, Giya Makondo-Wills (Third Place) from UK/South Africa, Kevin Faingnaert (Honourable Mention) from Belgium, and Dante Dennis V. Diosina Jr
 (Honourable Mention) from the Philippines, who will also receive prizes from Think Tank Photo, MediaStorm and The International Academic Forum (IAFOR).

Commenting on this year’s winning entries, IAFOR Chairman and CEO Dr Joseph Haldane said that “It is a source of great pride for me to be able to announce the third IAFOR Documentary Photography Award. In a short space of time, the IAFOR Documentary Photography Award has become recognised as one of the foremost international documentary photography awards for upcoming practitioners. This is in large part a testament to the quality of the judging panel, the extent of support and sponsorship from the industry, the alignment of IAFOR as an organisation to educate, inform and challenge, and the reflective strengths of documentary photography to do the same.”


Grand Prize

Single Mothers of Afghanistan
Kiana Hayeri
Iran/Canada


Second Place

Rubble and Delusion: A Journey Through Assad’s Syria
Christian Werner
Germany


Third Place

They Came From the Water while the World Watched
Giya Makondo-Wills
UK/South Africa


Honourable Mention

Føroyar
Kevin Faingnaert
Belgium


Honourable Mention

The War on Drugs
Dante Dennis V. Diosina Jr

Philippines

Special thanks to our judges, Paul Lowe, Monica Allende and Jocelyn Bain Hogg, and our wonderful supporters The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), World Press Photo, Metro Imaging, University of the Arts London, Think Tank Photo, Centre for Documentary Practice, RMIT University, Medill School of Journalism and MediaStorm.

For more information about the Award, please contact Thaddeus Pope, Creative Director, IAFOR Documentary Photography Award (tpope@iafor.org).

Posted by Thaddeus Pope

Thaddeus Pope is the Director of Visual Communications for The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) and the Creative Director of the IAFOR Documentary Photography Award.