By Conor Risch

The 53rd Annual World Press Photo of the Year has been awarded to Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo, for his image of women shouting from a Tehran rooftop on June 24, 2009, in protest of the contested Iranian presidential elections.

World Press Photo's 2009 winners were announced February 12 in Amsterdam.

Jury chair Ayperi Karabuda Ecer, vice president, pictures, for Reuters, said: “The photo shows the beginning of something, the beginning of a huge story. It adds perspectives to news. It touches you both visually and emotionally, and my heart went out to it immediately.”

“The difficulty in photographing conflict situations is one of portraying the parallel lives involved, of people going on with their lives," added juror Guy Tillim, a South African photographer. "This picture has made a very good attempt at marrying these two elements, in giving the conflict a context—and that is a holy grail of photography."

A Special Mention was made by the jury recognizing a frame grab of a June 2009 YouTube video from Tehran that depicted an Iranian woman named Neda Agha-Soltan lying on the ground after being shot in the chest. The Special Mention acknowledges that news reports of the civil conflict that arose in Iran after the disputed elections this year incorporated many non-professional images and reports due to restrictions placed on professional journalists by the Iranian government.

World Press Photo is one of the most widely followed photojournalism competitions. It is unique in selecting one photograph as the year's top work of photojournalism. It also recognizes dozens of other images in twenty other categories.

Specialized juries were used for the Sports, Nature and Portraits categories for the first time this year.

The jury worked at the World Press Photo office in Amsterdam from 30 January to 11 February 2010 to select this year’s winners from a pool of 101.960 of entries, up from 96,268 last year. The number of entering photographers was 5,847, another record. World Press Photo noted that entries came from 128 nationalities, with increases from Asia, Africa and Europe.

Other first-place winners include:


Each year World Press Photo produces a book and a traveling exhibition of award-winning images. The year's exhibition will open at the Oude Kerk, Oudekerksplein in Amsterdam on Friday, April 23, and will eventually travel to 100 cities in 50 countries.