The winner of the Prix Pictet will be announced tonight, and you can see the work of the 12 selected finalists on Lensculture.
The twelve are:
- Darren Almond, UK
- Christopher Anderson, Canada
- Sammy Baloji, Congo
- Edward Burtynsky, Canada
- Andreas Gursky, Germany
- Naoya Hatakeyama, Japan
- Nadav Kander, South Africa
- Ed Kashi, USA
- Abbas Kowsari, Iran
- Yao Lu, China
- Edgar Martins, Portugal and
- Chris Steele-Perkins, UK
I’d find it very hard to pick a winner from these, although there are two or three photographers whose work I’m surprised made it to the last 12, and I don’t think are showing anything like there best work here. Of course in most cases I’ve only seen the work on the web, though there are a few pictures I’ve seen before elsewhere.
If I had to choose, I think it would be between Naoya Hatakeyama and Ed Kashi, so those are probably two without a chance if my record at predicting such things stands.
As well as the £60,000 prize to be announced by Kofi Annan, honorary president of the Prix Pictet, at the Passage de Retz Gallery in Paris today, there will also be a commission for one of the twelve photographers.
And the winner was Nadav Kander, who earlier this week won another major award at the Lucie Awards in New York. Although as it says above he comes from South Africa, he is based in London.
But despite my support Ed Kashi did get the commission
http://www.prixpictet.com/news/latest_news/nadav_kander_wins_the_prix_pictet_2009/
for more on this.