Photographs documenting the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, migration, family and dementia have topped this year’s World Press Photo awards – one of the world’s most prestigious photography competitions.

Mohammed Salem, Lee-Ann Olwage, Alejandro Cegarra, and Julia Kochetova have been announced as the winners of this year’s competition, which is run by the World Press Photo Foundation – an independent, not-for-profit organisation that celebrates the importance of press and documentary photography.

The four winners, selected from a total of 61,062 entries from 3,851 photographers in 130 countries, were praised for their courage, skill and empathy.

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Salem won the photo of the year award for his photograph A Palestinian Woman Embraces the Body of her Niece, which was published by Reuters. It shows Inas Abu Maamar cradling the body of her five-year-old niece Saly, who was killed, along with her mother and sister, when an Israeli missile struck their home in Khan Younis, Gaza.

Salem, who is Palestinian, described the photo – taken days after his own wife had given birth – as a “powerful and sad moment that sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip”. The jury said the image had been composed with care and respect, offering both a metaphorical and literal glimpse into unimaginable loss.

Olwage, from South Africa, won photo story of the year for Valim-babena, published by the German magazine GEO. The selection of images show “Dada Paul”, who has lived with dementia for 11 years, getting ready for church in Madagascar with his granddaughter Odliatemix. The title is a Malagasy expression referring to children’s duties towards their parents.

In Madagascar, a lack of public awareness about dementia means people displaying symptoms of memory loss are often stigmatised. The jury said the story “tackles a universal health issue through the lens of family and care”.

Cegarra, from Venezuela, won the long-term project award for The Two Walls, published by the New York Times and Bloomberg, which showcased the resilience of migrants. The project drew from Cegarra’s first-hand experience of migrating from Venezuela to Mexico in 2017. The jury praised Cegarra’s sensitive, human-centred perspective.

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Kochetova, from Ukraine, won the open format award for War Is Personal. Amid the tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine, Kochetova created a web-based project that brings together photojournalism with the personal documentary style of a diary to show the everyday realities of war. The project also includes poetry, audio clips, and music in collaboration with a Ukrainian illustrator and DJ.

Kochetova, who is a regular contributor to the Guardian, said she had not made a choice to photograph war, but “war started and it always was mine”. She said since the moment Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 she had been thinking about how the media shapes stories.

“I wanted to make the story of Russian-Ukrainian war as close as is possible to the reader around the globe,” she said. “That’s why I actually chose the Signal chat as the form – the most secure messenger, usually used by soldiers. It makes these messages feel as close as if it was your phone, your story and your war. It makes words, eyes and hands personal. It gives a face and name to this war – something that we lose in between headlines.”

She added that winning the prize “doesn’t help my country win”. A day before the official announcement of the award, she added, “Chernihiv city centre was hit by Russians, killing 17 people and injuring more than 60. And it’s happening daily.

“As a Ukrainian storyteller, I only could hope that this recognition will be the important reminder for the world that war is not over.”

The images will be shown as part of the World Press Photo’s annual exhibition, which is expected to go to more than 60 locations worldwide, including Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong and Sydney.

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Fiona Shields, the chair of the global jury and head of photography at the Guardian, said the winning images had “such power to convey a specific moment, while also resonating beyond their own subject and time”.

She said the photo of the year “truly encapsulates this sense of impact; it is incredibly moving to view and at the same time an argument for peace, which is extremely powerful when peace can sometimes feel like an unlikely fantasy.”

Joumana El Zein Khoury, the executive director of World Press Photo, said the winning photographers were “intimately and personally familiar with their topics”.

El Zein Khoury also highlighted the risky nature of press and documentary photography. “This past year, the death toll in Gaza pushed the number of journalists killed to a near-record high. It is important to recognise the trauma they have experienced to show the world the humanitarian impact of the war.”

More than three-quarters of the were killed in the Israel-Gaza war, making it one of the deadliest years on record.

This year’s World Press Photo Exhibition will be at Borough Yards, London, from 3 May to 27 May

Palestinian photographer Mohammed Salem won the prestigious 2024 World Press Photo of the Year award on Thursday for his image of a Palestinian woman cradling the body of her five-year-old niece in the Gaza Strip, Reuters has reported. The picture was taken on 17 October at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where families were searching for relatives killed during Israeli bombing of the Palestinian enclave.

Salem’s winning image portrays Inas Abu Maamar, 36, sobbing while holding Saly’s sheet-clad body in the hospital morgue.

Announcing its annual awards, the Amsterdam-based World Press Photo Foundation said it was important to recognise the dangers facing journalists covering conflicts. It pointed out that at least 99 journalists and media employees have been killed covering the war between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza since the cross-border incursion led by the Islamic Resistance Movement on 7 October, following which Israel then launched its ongoing military offensive, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, and wounded at least 76,000 more.

Reuters’ Mohammed Salem has won the 2024 World Press Photo of the Year award for this image of a Palestinian woman, Inas Abu Maamar, cradling the body of her five-year-old niece in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/LTU2TPpk7c

— Barry Malone (@malonebarry) April 18, 2024

“The work of press and documentary photographers around the world is often done at high risk,” said Joumana El Zein Khoury, the organisation’s executive director. “This past year, the death toll in Gaza pushed the number of journalists killed to a near-record high. It is important to recognise the trauma they have experienced to show the world the humanitarian impact of the war.”

Salem, 39, is a Palestinian who has worked for Reuters since 2003. He also won an award in the 2010 World Press Photo competition. The jury said that his 2024 winning image was “composed with care and respect, offering at once a metaphorical and literal glimpse into unimaginable loss.”

“I felt the picture sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip,” Salem said when the image was first published in November. “People were confused, running from one place to another, anxious to know the fate of their loved ones, and this woman caught my eye as she was holding the body of the little girl and refused to let go.” His wife had given birth to their child days before he took the shot.

The photograph is “profoundly affecting,” said jury member Fiona Shields, head of photography at Guardian News & Media. The jury selected the winning photos from 61,062 entries by 3,851 photographers from 130 countries.

GEO photographer Lee-Ann Olwage of South Africa won the story of the year category with images documenting dementia in Madagascar. The long-term projects category was won by Alejandro Cegarra of Venezuela for the series “The Two Walls” for the New York Times/Bloomberg.

Ukrainian photographer Julia Kochetova won the open format award with “War is Personal”, which documented the war in her country by weaving together pictures, poetry, audio and music in documentary style.

READ: 2 children among those killed in Israeli bombing of Gaza school

Acclaimed photographer Kevin Fleming will lead a photography workshop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, April 27, at the Lewes Public Library. Attendees can learn to be better photographers in just one day.

The workshop is limited to six people, so everyone will receive individual attention.

Fleming will begin with the basics of photography including shutter speeds and f-stops. From there he will cover how, when and where to find and create better photographs. The workshop is perfect for beginners and intermediate photographers.

Cost is $125 and includes lunch catered by Arena’s and a free signed copy of Fleming’s “Heart of America” book. 

For more information and to register, go to KevinFleming.com.

It’s spring of 1953 and Rosella’s passion for photography grows faster than the grass on the lawn of the Cathedral of Learning. He follows it, camera in hand, throughout his time at the University of Pittsburgh, capturing everything from touchdown ticker tape at the old Pitt Stadium to commuters awaiting the arrival of a Fifth Avenue streetcar.

When he isn’t photographing, Rosella pursues a degree from Pitt’s School of Dental Medicine. He graduates in 1957 and goes directly into service as a naval dentist. After two years of service, he leaves the Navy and begins his own dental practice, where he is successful for more than 30 years, retiring in 1993.

Over the years, he never forgets those happy, creative years with his camera at Pitt — or the images he captured. That’s why, around 2014, Rosella decides to revisit them. He thinks they might be worth compiling into a book of photography. When others see his captivating work, they agree. 

The result is “Pittsburgh Streets 1950s,” a collection of 115 black-and-white and color images Rosella produced during and shortly after his time at Pitt. Its release last fall was celebrated with a talk and reception at the Heinz History Center as part of its Italian American program.

In the book’s foreword, photographer Linda Benedict-Jones, the first curator of photography at Carnegie Museum of Art and former executive director of Pittsburgh’s Silver Eye Center for Photography, writes that Rosella’s images “provide insight not only into the way people acted and interacted, not just which carnival or parade they attended, what clothes they wore or cars they drove, but perhaps most importantly [insight] into what a young photographer found worthy of examination.”