BERLIN (AFP) – AFP photographer John MacDougall has won one of Germany’s most renowned photography prizes with a photo taken on the sidelines of a military funeral for soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
The winning photo of a German female soldier embracing a relative of one of the three victims brought home the human aspect of the tragedy, judges of the “Rueckblende” award for political photography said.
Unidentified relatives of a German soldier killed in Afghanistan comfort each other following a funeral ceremony outside the Evangelische Epiphanias Church during a memorial service in the northern German city of Hanover, June 3, 2011. The three were killed in a bomb attack in Afghanistan on May 28, 2011 © AFP PHOTO / JOHN MACDOUGALL
“Of the four photos I selected to put forward for the prize, I’m glad it was this one that was chosen because, for me, it was the strongest,” the Berlin AFP photographer said.
MacDougall, 46, who is French-American, began his career as an editor and translator for Paris publishers after studying literature in New York but switched to photography in 1989 when he joined Agence France-Presse in Paris. After the international photo desk, he went on to work as an AFP photo editor in Hong Kong and then as chief photographer in Indonesia, also covering south Asia. In 2003, he joined the Berlin bureau, helping to establish AFP’s German photo desk.
His photo was chosen from among 247 entries for the Rueckblende, which was created in 1995 and carries a 7,000-euro ($9,200) prize, and which also awards a prize for political cartoonists.
John gratuated from Spéos in 1990.
