The final of 2008’s competition was held in Amsterdam in February 2009 and since then the exhibition has toured Berlin, Brisbane, Charlottesville (USA), Lisbon, and now is coming to the Russian capital. Over the year the exhibition will be shown in 100 cities worldwide.

A total of 5,500 professional photographers with over 96,000 works representing 124 countries of the world were submitted to be judged in this year’s competition.

Winners were chosen by an independent jury consisting of 13 professional photographers and photo-editors of different forms of mass-media. As a result 196 photos of 62 photographers were chosen and will be displayed in Moscow.

The jury gave prizes in 10 themed categories to the 62 photographers of 27 nationalities.

Anthony Suau, USA. Photo of the Year winner (image from www.worldpressphoto.org)

Three photographers from Russia made it to the final and came out winners. They are: Yury Kozyrev, who took first place in the “Portrait” category for his photograph of a mother with her son in Iraq; Aleksandr Taran who came second in the competition for best sports feature for his series covering the Sambo championship in St. Petersburg; and Aleksey Bushov, who won the third place for shooting leopard hunting in Namibia in the “Nature” category.

The work of the second place winner in the “Daily life” category was chosen as the work of the year. Anthony Suau’s (USA) black and white picture features Detective Robert Kole of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office entering a home in Cleveland, Ohio. He is enforcing an eviction due to a mortgage foreclosure, and needs to check that the owners have vacated the premises and that no weapons have been left lying around. Officers go in at gunpoint as a precaution, as many houses have been vandalized or occupied by squatters or drug addicts. The photo was taken on March 26, 2008 as part of a photo report for Time magazine.

Throughout the duration of the exhibition on June 27, master classes by the winners of the competition – Anthony Suau (USA) and Guillaume Herbaut (France) – will be held.

The exhibition will be on from June 27 through July 27 at Moscow’s Krasny Oktyabr factory.