Felix Schoeller Photo Award 2017

Matt Hulse impressed the jury of this year’s Felix Schoeller Foto Award with his project Sniper. The series, which was created in North Korea and South-East Asia, was chosen both as the winner of the Free Choice/Conceptual Photography category and the competition’s overall Gold Award winner.

To complete the project, the British film maker, photographer and author, who lives in Beijing, used a straightforward way of working: “I photographed people from the rooftops of high buildings, using a cheap mobile phone and a telescopic lens I picked up for nine US dollars. I chose the title SNIPER because of the unnerving, threatening feeling and black humour of the shooting situation,” he explains, adding, “though of course, no-one got hurt in the process.”

Hulse has been experimenting with photography and film-making since the nineties. His work has received numerous nominations and won multiple international festival awards.

The competition’s Emerging Photographer Award went to Syrian photographer Hosam Katan. Born in Aleppo in 1994, he began to document the conflicts in Syria at the age of 17. Amongst others, he worked as a freelance photographer for Reuters and the German magazine ‘Stern’. Katan was shot by a sniper, but survived his injuries and eventually managed to flee from Syria. Today he lives in Hanover, Germany. His work has won several international competitions, and has been shown in exhibitions both within Europe and in the US.

For further information visit: http://felix-schoeller-photoaward.com/en/#/award
[Felix Schoeller Award], Matt Hulse and Hosam Katan