Photographers handed grants from Getty Images
Two photographers – Lisa Barnard and Andy Lo Po – have become the recipients of the Getty Images Prestige Grant.
The announcement:
Getty Images has today announced the recipients of its newly inaugurated Getty Images Prestige Grant, which will support two outstanding creative photographers to realise a dream project.
Open to commercial photographers around the globe, the grant has awarded two recipients USD$15,000 and $7,500 respectively to realise passion projects which will evolve their photographic portfolio.
Recipient of the top prize is British photographer and Lisa Barnard who has been awarded $15,000 to realise her project, Sweat of the Sun. A direct response to the financial crisis of 2008, Sweat of the Sun is a desire to connect particular interests; global capitalism, technology, conflict and the role that women increasingly have within this arena within a broader narrative around the material, gold, and how its application as a key nanomaterial is beginning to offer new solutions to a range of global health and environmental challenges.
Andy Lo Po, an award-winning Australian photographic artist based in London has been awarded the second grant of $7,500 to realise his project, The Evolution of the Human Body. Charting the evolution of the human body through pornography, Lo Po’s project explores the body in the modern world and the influence that porn has had on our perception of our own physicality. The project will examine codes of desire, beauty and social and cultural aesthetics.
“A great idea is something that makes me stop in my tracks and think about the world all over again and this is what makes our Prestige images and photographers stand out above the rest,” says Andrew Saunders, Senior Vice President, Creative at Getty Images.
“We received many strong and creative submissions – which made the judging a challenging but rewarding task. Both of the Getty Images Prestige Grant recipients submitted highly original ideas and demonstrated progressive interpretation of those ideas. We are excited to see these projects develop and creative boundaries pushed with the support of these grants.”
Getty Images received almost 400 entries from over 4 continents with work pitched right across the creative scope.
The submissions were judged by a panel of industry experts including:
- Adam Hinton – Award-winning photographer
- Rebecca Mcclelland – Photographic Director
- Gemma Padley – Projects Editor, British Journal of Photography
- Lydia Pang – Director of Commissioning, Anomaly NY & London
Gemma Padley said of the winning submission, “Lisa’s treatment stood out to me primarily because of the strength and originality of the idea, and also the depth of research that has clearly gone into it. I was also impressed by how the photographer has taken time to place her project idea in its historical context, but at the same time ensure that the idea retains a contemporary edge.
“There are many possible outcomes for this piece of work but most of all, I’m excited to see how photography – a visual medium – can be used as a tool to explore, in deeper and more meaningful ways, an (invisible) topic that is highly relevant to us all today.”
Lydia Pang said of Andy Lo Po’s proposal, “Andy’s project instantly stuck as something curious, dark and original. As soon as I read the proposal I felt excited to see what that image would look like. It felt well researched and like something he’d visualised and wanted to shoot. Andy stood out as a photographer who entered based on his gut and based on something he was dying to shoot that was a bit “out-there”, a bit surreal! This grant will allow a very talented photographer to explore another facet of his work, and that excites me.”
The Getty Images Prestige Grant is part of a comprehensive grants programme run by the company which also includes grants for excellence in Editorial photography – providing both emerging and established photographers with the means to pursue projects of personal and journalistic significance – and the newly inaugurated Getty Images Instagram Grant, which supports photographers using Instagram to document stories of social importance from underrepresented communities around the world.
The Getty Images grants programme has provided grants in excess of US$1.2 million since its inception 11 years ago.
Source: Getty Images press release
