NEW YORK, NY (October 17, 2007) - Australian photographer Stephen Dupont is this year's winner of the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his project "Narcostan: The Perils of Freedom," it was announced tonight at a ceremony at the HBO Theatre in New York City. An additional grant, the W. Eugene Smith Fellowship Grant for $5,000 was shared by Stefano De Luigi of Milan for the project "Blindness: The Blind Condition Worldwide," and Seamus Murphy of London for the project "After Kennedy: A Look At American Values."
The annual awards are presented by the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund to recognize photographers "who have demonstrated a commitment to documenting the human condition," said Helen Marcus, president of the Fund.
In announcing the award the Fund said, "For the past 15 years, Dupont has self-funded numerous trips to Afghanistan and has passionately dedicated [himself] to documenting the ever-changing face of Afghan society — from the civil war in 1993 to the rise of the Taliban to the current U.S.-led war on terror. His project will investigate not only the economic and political toll of the drug epidemic on Afghanistan at large, but also the human aspects of those involved — how, ostracized by their religion, stigmatized by society, and abandoned by family, these addicts struggle to survive—to get high—in one of the poorest places on earth.”
He intends to return to Afghanistan two more times to “cover otherwise uncovered stories," and to "to investigate the wider web addiction casts by taking us into the drug bazaars, police stations, corridors of policy makers, and dangerous southern provinces where poppy cultivation is rampant.”
One of the Fellowship recipients, Stefano De Luigi, has been documenting blindness since 2003, examining medical and humanitarian efforts to assist the sightless and to find solutions to the condition’s underlying causes. The Fund says that De Luigi believes it is “easier to ignore the blind, their handicap is hidden.” His story has taken him to Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda, Bulgaria, Thailand and other countries. With the help of the Fellowship he will continue the project to bring the extent of the condition and disease to the world.
Marcus says that Seamus Murphy started two years ago on “a quest to document Americans,” crisscrossing the nation on four separate journeys. “The image of America,” he contends, “is being remade by forces outside and from within.” His exploration is an ongoing attempt "to discover the humanity and spirit from which this culture springs… to look at the unifying role that religion and belief plays in the lives of Americans [and to] evaluate where the country is heading.”
Judges picked the winners from 129 entries representing 23 counties, Marcus said. The jury was headed by Smith Fund board of trustees member David Friend of Vanity Fair; Wang Yao of China, and Sylvia Plachy of New York.
Also announced tonight, The Bridge Project is the recipient of the 2007 Howard Chapnick Grant for the Advancement of Photojournalism. Winners Miguel Anaya, Lyric Cabral, Mark Nevers, Danny Peralta, and Bashira Webb, who have been working together under the umbrella of the Jocelyne Benzakin Fellowship, received the $5,000 Chapnick Grant to "further develop the model they have pioneered to provide educational opportunities for new members." The Bridge Project seeks to "empower individuals in communities negated by mainstream media… through photography and to provide them with the necessary tools to successfully tell their own stories.”
The W. Eugene Smith Grant was established in 1978 following the death of Smith by his friends Howard Chapnick, Jim Hughes, and John Morris to perpetuate Smith’s work and spirit. The grant program provides photojournalists with the financial freedom to envision and carry out major photographic studies. Marcus says that this year’s grants were funded in part by contributions from Open Society Institute, Digital Railroad, Getty Images, Inc., The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and Zuma Press, Inc.
Applications for the next W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography are due July 15, 2008, and may be obtained by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope with an application request to: The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, c/o International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas,New York, NY, 10036, or by going online to www.smithfund.org
.
