Leica honoured photographers Terje Abusdal and Sergey Melnitchenko with the prestigious Leica Oskar Barnack Award and Leica Oskar Barnack Award Newcomer, respectively.
before an audience of approximately 300 guests in Berlin’s Saint Elisabeth church at an exclusive reception on September 13th. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, Abusdal’s series Slash & Burn creates a mystical and expressive portrait of the Forest Finns, a Norwegian ethnic minority group that leads a life in close touch with nature. As the winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, Abusdal was presented with a cash prize of €25,000 (approximately $30,000) and Leica M-System (a camera and lens) valued at an additional €10,000. Meanwhile, Ukrainian photographer Sergey Melnitchenko was honored with the Newcomer Award for up-and-coming professional photographers aged 25 or younger for his portfolio entitled Behind the Scenes. The winning portfolio is a series of images captured behind the scenes in a Chinese nightclub that tells the stories of everyday life for dancers, with all the rough edges of show business including, bruised and battered legs, scratches and scars, feet raw from dancing, and laddered stockings in the light of make-up mirrors. For his award-winning portfolio, Melnitchenko was presented with a cash prize of €10,000 as well as a Leica rangefinder camera and lens.
2017-9-27 17:00
