World Press Photo Winner 2021

Mads Nissen is the winner of the World Press Photo Award 2021. This marks the third time the Danish photojournalist (b. 1979) has been honoured in the contest’s Press Photo of the Year category, following his previous wins in 2011 and 2015.

His image ‘The First Embrace’ shows 85-year-old Rosa Luzia Lunardi being hugged by Adriana Silva da Costa Souza, a nurse at the Viva Bem care home in São Paulo, Brazil. Due to the pandemic-induced social distancing rules, this was the first embrace Rosa had received in five months.

Antonio Faccilongo’s series ‘Habibi’ was chosen as the Story of the Year. Ralph Pace was selected in the Nature – Single Pictures category for his poignant image, ‘California Sea Lion Plays with Mask’. The winning photograph in the Portraits category is ‘The Transition: Ignat’ by Oleg Ponomarev – showing Ignat, a transgender man, with his girlfriend, Maria.

Some 75,000 images by around 4300 photographers were submitted for this year’s award.

For more details visit World Press Photo