From now until April 10, the winning photos from the World Press Photo Contest 2021 are on display at the Le Van Tam Park in HCMC’s District 1.
The opening ceremony of the exhibition was held at the park on March 23 with the attendance of Daniel Stork, Consul General of the Netherlands in HCMC; Pham Dut Diem, vice director of the HCMC Department of External Relations; and photographer Linh Pham, one of the judges of the World Press Photo Contest 2022.
Speaking at the ceremony, Stork, also the host of the exhibition, said the event is one of the activities for celebrating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam-Netherlands diplomatic ties. The exhibition aims to showcase the photojournalists’ views about human life worldwide, he added.
According to a representative of the World Press Photo Organization, the 64th annual World Press Photo Contest received 74,470 entries from 4,315 photographers across 130 countries around the world. Despite Covid-19, the number of photos was much higher than the organization expected. Most of the photos are related to how the pandemic has affected our world in the past years.
The 2021 World Press Photo of the Year went to “The First Embrace” by Mads Nissen from Denmark. The photo captured one of the most memorable moments of the pandemic, in which Rosa Luzia Lunardi, 85, was embraced by nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza, at Viva Bem care home, São Paulo, Brazil, on August 5, 2020. This was the first hug Rosa had received in five months. Covid-19 prevented millions of Brazilians from visiting their relatives.
