Six recipients receive Bursaries totalling $20,000, aimed at supporting emerging talent in the creative photography field
The photography agency Getty Images announced at the end of January the first recipients of the inaugural Getty Images Creative Bursary. The six recipients, hailing from the USA, Kenya and Nigeria, have been awarded prizes ranging from $5,000 for joint first place, $3,000 for joint second place and $2,000 for joint third place.
Founded in October 2017, the annual $40,000 Bursary ($20 000 are distributed twice each year) was established to support emerging photographers in the creative field and enable them to realize commercial photographic projects which, without funding, they might not have otherwise been able to pursue.
The recipients, who must be 30 years or under, or have been pursuing photography as a professional career for less than three years, were asked to submit a project proposal and visual brief in support of their creative idea.
The first recipients are:
First place:
Oriana Koren is a Florida-born photographer, writer, and activist currently based in Los Angeles. Her project If I Can Cook, You Know God Can will be a six-month long project documenting African contributions to food culture in the Americas.
Jeremy Dennis –Born and raised on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in Southampton New York, photographer Dennis looks to explore the topic of indigenous history and oral stories in his project Our Stories – Past and Present. Through his work, Dennis uses the medium of photography to address themes of indigenous identity, assimilation, and tradition.
Second place:
Yagazie Emezi –Nigerian documentary photographer Emezi aims to provoke folkloric connotations through her photographic project titled Another Tale By Moonlight. Emezi began her journey as a self-taught photographer in early 2015 and has since been commissioned by the likes of the New York Times and Vogue.
Neema Githere – Film photographer and multimedia artist from Nairobi, Githere’s idea for her project Coming of Age as a Nomad in the #DigitalDiaspora was motivated by her wanderlust and will document her return visit to Madagascar.
Joint third place:
Donavon Smallwood –New York-based photographer Smallwood has been awarded for his project Shepherdess, which is inspired by the traditional paintings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau.
Tara Sellios –Boston-born photographer Sellios mimics the style of altarpiece paintings in her project Testimony. The still-life photographs are created using organic matter with the purpose of showcasing the beauty of the natural world.
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