Australian photographer
Stephen Dupont has been awarded this year's W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, which carries a $30,000 prize. The grant was to be awarded at a ceremony Wednesday.
The jury gave the award to Dupont to support his project, "Narcostan: The Perils of Freedom." Dupont, who has been shooting self-funded projects in Afghanistan for the past 15 years, plans to use his grant to continue the toll drug trafficking takes on the country, as well as the problems faced by Afghanistan's addicts. The project seeks to show "how, ostracized by their religion, stigmatized by society, and abandoned by family, these addicts struggle to survive—to get high—in one of the poorest countries on earth."
An additional Fellowship Grant, worth $5,000, will be shared by two photographers:
Stefano De Luigi of Milan and
Seamus Murphy of London.
De Luigi's project, "Blindness: The Blind Condition Worldwide" examines medical and humanitarian efforts to assist the visually impaired. His work on the project has already taken him to Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda, Bulgaria, Thailand and elsewhere.
Murphy has been working for two years on "After Kennedy: A Look at American Values," crisscrossing America "to look at the unifying role that religion and belief plays in the lives of Americans [and to] evaluate where the country is heading."
Finalists for this year's grant were
Giorgia Fiorio of Venice, Italy;
Ed Kashi of Montclair, NJ;
Danny Wilcox Frazier of Iowa City, IA;
Andy Levin of New Orleans;
Mary Ellen Mark of New York City;
Anderson Schneider of Brasilia; and
Mikhael Subotzky of Cape Town, South Africa.
The jurors for the 2007 grant were
David Friend, a member of the Smith fund board and author of
Watching The World Change;
Wang Yao, photographer and vice president of China News Service in Beijing; and freelance photojournalist
Sylvia Plachy.
Now in its 28th year, the Grant was funded this year in part by several sponsors: Open Society Institute, Digital Railroad, Getty Images, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and Zuma Press. Until last year, the Grant's sole sponsor had been Nikon.
Also being given out this evening is the Howard Chapnick Grant for the Advancement of Photojournalism. This year, the $5,000 grant will be presented to
Miguel Anaya, Lyric Cabral, Mark Nevers, Danny Peralta, and
Bashira Webb. These individuals were all introduced to the study of photography under the umbrella of the Jocelyne Benzakin Fellowship. They have worked closely with teachers at the International Center of Photography and, through mentorships, have been "been invited to in-depth editing sessions with editors at
Time and others." The grant will allow them to extend the model they have begun to new members and to serve young people in their New York communities by conducting photography workshops and helping them develop photo essays about their lives.
The judges for the Chapnick grant are trustees of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund: photographer
Donna Ferrato; Robert Pledge, president of Contact Press Images;
Marcel Saba, president of Redux Pictures; photo editor
Yukiko Launois; and photographer
Helen Marcus, president of the Smith Fund.
For information on applying for next year's Smith grant, visit the
W. Eugene Smith Fund web site.
Related stories:
October 26: 2006: Paolo Pellegrin Wins W. Eugene Smith Grant
October 18, 2005: Bonet Gets Smith Grant For Work in Sierra Leone
October 14, 2004: Stanley Greene Wins W. Eugene Smith Grant
