Interview with Huang Wen, President of the Jury and co-founder of the Chipp
Chipp which means China International Photo Press Contest was launched 10 years ago under the model of peace and development. We tried to establish an international press photo contest giving a platform for the whole world of photo journalism and we try now to encourage the photographers who are working as photo journalists sticking to their job, trying hard to record the development of the world. The motto of peace and development was the aim of the Chipp and we encourage the photographers to record the struggle and the fight of people of all the world for their dream of peace and development also we are still facing war, catastrophies, disasters and so on.
After 10 years we see that Chipp has succeeded in being pretty well known and recognized as an international contest and we have received every year more and more entries, more than 30.000 this year from more than 60 countries, many of them from Europe and the US.
This is my first year as a jury member. But I used to be the executive secretary of the CHIPP contest for 8 years in the past and I am really happy to see how successfull we are in the world of photo journalism.
I am really happy to see the growth of the contest and see that the jury members come from so many countries and so many distinguished medias. They are judging very colorful and sometimes very hard to look at pictures. This year, I have seen, as a jury member how hard it could be to judge so many great pictures finding the best ones so they get an award. But in one category, Science, Technology and Culture News Singles where the entries were unfortunately weak, the jury decided not to give Gold and Silver awards for the singles. I am very glad with this year’s choice which is about the Philippines hurricane.
All photographers can participate to the Chipp. We begin getting pictures as early as december, and usually we call for entires at the end of each year for a jury gathering in late march of the following year. Photographers can apply directly from our website: www.chipp.cn which we have to improve. And we will.
We really encourage any photographer to send their stories and singles to us. Dont’ forget that the Picture of the Year gets an award of about 17.000 dollars, and the gold of each category get 1.700 dollar.
And to answer your question, yes I am happy with the picture of this year after an intensive fight and debate between the jury members. I think that the judging process is not only the results , but it is also the process of selecting pictures by discussion, by exchanging ideas, by communication. This is also part of the process of fullfilling our dreams of peace and development…
Interview by Floris de Bonneville
