Awards celebrate best Swiss photos of the year
Yves Leresche has been announced as the 2020 Swiss Press Photographer of the year. The jury selected him for photographs he took at the historic women’s strike in Switzerland last year.
LerescheExternal link took the overall prize after also winning the ‘news’ category of the award. His photo series (shown above) captured the Lausanne section of a nationwide women’s strike, when women took to the streets across the country to demand gender equality, equal pay for equal work, and other issues.
Leresche said: “I tried to capture the energy that the women exuded. This was the central subject”.
The photojournalist comes from Lausanne in the French-speaking part of Switzerland and has worked as a freelancer since 1991. His photography deals with social inequalities and often covers marginalised sections of society, such as the Roma people. He has received several awards, including the World Press Photo Prize 1997External link.
The Swiss Press PhotoExternal link award has five categories: news, daily life, Swiss stories, sport and world.
First place in the ‘daily life’ section went to Adrian MoserExternal link, with a series on a tour group from South Korea. The images show the whirlwind nature of a trip through Switzerland, which includes a 1.5 hour stop on the Jungfraujoch; just enough time to capture a few shots of the iconic setting.
Eleni KougionisExternal link won the ‘Swiss stories’ category for a photo series on the daily work of the association “Schwarzer Peter” (Black Peter), which provides care for marginalised and poverty-stricken people in Basel.
The ‘sports’ category was won by Loris von SiebenthalExternal link. His photographs show the world’s most important inland sailing regatta on Lake Geneva. The event took place in a storm in 2019, causing numerous boats to lose their masts or sails; some crew members fell overboard, while some boats even sank.
Christian BobstExternal link took the prize for the ‘world’ category. In his series, he deals with Senegalese Sufism, a religious branch to which 95% of the Muslims in Senegal belong. “With this work, I would like to contribute to reducing prejudice against Islam and Africa,” said Bobst.
The Swiss Press Photo Award is awarded each year by the Reinhardt von Graffenried Foundation. It promotes reporting and press photography in print and electronic media in Switzerland and was founded in 2009. The prize is awarded every year and the main winner receives CHF25,000 ($25,659).
Translated by Jo Fahy
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