Announcing the 2013 Alexia Foundation Profession and Student Grant Winners

The 2013 Alexia Foundation Grant judging took place at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University on Feb. 23, 2013. The judges were Lynn Johnson who works for National Geographic and various foundations, Getty Photographer John Moore, and Jim Dooley, former Newsday director of photography and current Executive Administrator of the Alexia Foundation.

The judging weekend began with the annual Alexia Foundation Photojournalism Seminar, with talks by judges Johnson and Moore.

Founder Aphrodite Tsairis noted, “To a room packed full of students, the speakers described an exciting future for visual journalism. This new landscape will provide them with fertile ground in which to become the innovators of the 21st century. They exhorted the students to, ‘be socially conscious engagers in society and never stop shooting.'”

The judges’ hopefulness was confirmed by the quantity and caliber of applications received for the available grants this year.

“The overall quality of the student and professional entries was extremely high both in the photography and in the seriousness of the proposals,” observed Jim Dooley.

“As we judged, I was encouraged by the number of young photographers who still believe that, camera in hand, they can move our world forward toward awareness and peace,” added Lynn Johnson, “it was not only an honor to be a judge, but inspiring to be in the presence of so many powerful images and issues.”

Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to everyone who shared their powerful, important stories with us.

Pro Winner © Abir Abdullah – Fire fighters carry an injured person during a rescue operation. Four people died and got injured according to a fire service report at Kawran Bazaar, Dhaka – 25 February 2007

Abir Abdullah is the winner of the $15,000 Alexia Foundation 2013 Professional Grant.

Abdullah’s work will document the continuous threat fire presents for the working class communities of Dhaka, Bangladesh in basti (slums), garment factories and shopping malls. In the rapidly growing city, lack of fire safety precautions is omnipresent, and is particularly visible in the garment industry, Bangladesh’s most successful industry. The danger is compounded by corrupt officials who ignore building codes and greedy businessmen who bypass fire protection, making homes and workspaces death traps.

Abdullah is a part time teacher at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute and a stringer photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency in Bangladesh.

His numerous awards include:

• Mother Jones Award, 2001 for “Freedom Fighters: Veterans of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.”

• Nomination for the Joop Swart Masterclass by World Press Photo Foundation in 2001.

• Overall winner, Phaidon 55 Photography competition, 2001.

• 1st prize, WHO photo contest in Switzerland, 2002.

• 3rd place, Gordon Parks photo contest, USA, 2002.

• 2nd prize, Unicef Photographer of the year contest 2004, Germany.

• Gold prize, People and Portrait category, China International Press Photo Contest, 2008.

• 1st prize, People and Planet photo contest, 2010.

There were 433 applications that the judges narrowed down to six. Then Abdullah’s proposal and portfolio were selected as the best of the best. The other finalists, in no particular order, are freelance photographer Christian Werner based in Nordstemmen, Germany; Robin Hammond, a freelance photojournalist based in Paris, and a member of the photo agency Panos Pictures; Noriko Hayashi, a freelance photographer based in Tokyo; Alvaro Ybarra Zavala, 31, a Getty photographer based in Spain; Jenn Ackerman, a freelance photographer based in Minneapolis.

Student Winners

First Place Student Winner © Sara Naomi Lewkowicz – As Shane and Maggie continued to fight, Memphis ran into the room and refused to leave Maggie's side. She witnessed the majority of the assault on her mother. "Please Shane, let me take her out of here," Maggie pleaded. "She shouldn't be seeing this."

Sara Naomi Lewkowicz is the winner of the Alexia Foundation 2013 Student Grant. Her project, “Shane and Maggie,” seeks to portray domestic abuse as a process, as opposed to a single incident, examining how a pattern of abuse develops and eventually crests, as well as show its short- and long-term effects on victims, their families, and their abusers.

She is a graduate photojournalism student at Ohio University. Lewkowicz wins a full-tuition scholarship to study photojournalism at the Syracuse University London Program in Fall, 2013, plus a $1,000 grant to produce her picture story and a $300 gift card from Dury’s Photo for equipment and supplies.

She has a B.A. in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been an intern at Patuxent Publishing, is a 3 time alumna of the WKU Mountain Workshops and was a student at the Eddie Adams Barnstorm Workshop XXV.

Second place student winner © Dijana MuMinovic – A boy looks at two women who pray in front of a truck that delivered 775 coffins to be buried in Potocari for the 15th anniversary of the 1995 genocide. More than 10,000 boys and men were slaughtered in town of Srebrenica and buried in Potocari Memorial Center.

Dijana Muminovic is a graduate photojournalism student at Ohio University.

Muminovic’s work will examine genocide and and the aftermath of war, by documenting the exhumation of bodies from Lake Perucac which which borders Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Approximately 800 bodies were thrown into the lake from 1992 to 1995 during the Bosnian war.

Muminovic majored in photojournalism at Western Kentucky University and is now a freelance photojournalist doing work for the Athens News. She wins a half-tuition scholarship to study photojournalism at the Syracuse University London Program in Fall, 2013, plus a $500 grant to produce her picture story and a $250 gift card from Dury’s Camera.

Award of Excellence Winners

Award of Excellence Winner © Souvid Datta – Akash on his alleyway in Punditya Basti. Over 120 people live within this two-story, 10m-long stretch.

Souvid Datta, a Mumbai-born third-year student at University College of London, studying International Relations and Law, who will document life in Sonagachi, a slum in North Kolkata, India and one of the largest red-light areas in South Asia which is slated to be destroyed in 2014.

Award of Excellence Winner © Annie Flanagan – Hannah, Age 26. "Mike one of his main things was repressing my sexuality and shaming me for it until my sexuality wasn't even part of me anymore," Hannah said, "I've been able to reclaim my sexuality as part of me, and a large part of my life and not feel ashamed for it. I don't have to be ashamed of my sexuality, I shouldn't be ashamed for it and now I feel excited to expire my sexuality. Everything I pushed away in a dark corner while I was with him."

Annie Flanagan, a Syracuse University graduate photojournalism student, will show the long term effects of sexual violence.

Award of Excellence Winner © Andrew Renneisen – Police look for evidence at the murder scene of Christian Hargrove, 21, who was murdered last night on North Virginia Avenue, on Monday morning, July 9, 2012, in Atlantic City, NJ.

Andrew Renneisen, a Syracuse University junior photojournalism major, will document violence in Camden, N.J.

Each Award of Excellence winner receives a $1500 scholarship that can be used to pay part expenses to study photojournalism in London in the fall semester at the Syracuse University London Program, or for any Momenta Photo Workshop, a $500 cash grant to help produce their proposed stories, and a $150 gift card from Dury’s Camera.

121 students applied to the competition this year.