I was a little shocked but not really surprised to find that the winner of this year’s Deutsche Borse Photography Prize is Esko Männikkö. He certainly didn’t come in my own top two choices of the four on the shortlist. Is he really the photographer of the four “who has made the greatest contribution to photography over the previous year?”
I’ve previously posted my thoughts on the 4 contestants. You can read them at:
John Davies
Jacob Holdt
Esko Männikkö
Fazal Sheikh
Prizes like this are of course a lottery, decided on the whim of a particular jury, and another group of equally eminent jurors would likely have reached a different decision. It isn’t really possible to come to an objective decision over something like this when the four bodies of work are so different. If like me you have a strong conviction that documentary is the real centre of photography, then Männikkö’s work for this show was unlikely to get your vote.
So congratulations to Männikkö and commiserations to the other three contestants who the pin missed. Although it’s a great honour to have been short-listed, the disparity between the award made to the winner and the others seems, as always, greatly unfair.
This is only one of several important prizes awarded recently, which I’ll look at it a later post.