An iconic embrace

Pandemic hug image named World Press Photo of the Year

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A photo symbolizing “love and compassion” of an 85-year-old Brazilian woman getting her first embrace in five months from a nurse through a transparent “hug curtain” was named the World Press Photo of the Year on Thursday.

It was the second time the Danish photographer who shot the image has won the prestigious award.

The choice of a winning photo portraying the global pandemic was almost inevitable for the contest covering a year in which news around the globe was dominated by the virus that has killed nearly 3 million people, including more than 360,000 in hard-hit Brazil.

The image by Mads Nissen captured the moment Rosa Luzia Lunardi was hugged by nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza at the Viva Bem care home in Sao Paulo on Aug. 5.

A curtain of clear plastic — its yellow edges folded into a shape resembling a pair of butterfly wings — offers protection, as does the nurse’s face mask.

“This iconic image of covid-19 memorializes the most extraordinary moment of our lives, everywhere,” jury member Kevin WY Lee said of the hug image. “I read vulnerability, loved ones, loss and separation, demise, but, importantly, also survival — all rolled into one graphic image. If you look at the image long enough, you’ll see wings: a symbol of flight and hope.”

The image taken by Nissen for the Panos Pictures agency and the Danish daily Politiken also won first prize in the contest’s General News Singles category. Nissen also won World Press Photo of the Year in 2015 with an intimate photo of a gay couple in Russia.

“The main message of this image is empathy. It’s love and compassion,” Nissen said in a comment released by contest organizers.

“It’s a really, really hard, grim situation and then in that horror, in that suffering, I think this picture also brings some light,” Nissen said at an online awards ceremony after being told he had won the award and the $6,000 prize that goes with it.

Second place in the category was a far more grim covid-19 image — the body of a suspected coronavirus victim tightly wrapped in plastic in a hospital in Indonesia on April 18 by Indonesian photographer Joshua Irwandi.

The pandemic even reached the Environment Singles category, with U.S. photographer Ralph Pace winning for his image of a curious California sea lion swimming toward a face mask drifting underwater at the Breakwater dive site in Monterey.

Judges looked at 74,470 photographs by 4,315 photographers before selecting winners in eight categories including general news, sports, the environment and portraits.

The World Press Photo Story of the Year was awarded to Italian documentary photographer Antonio Faccilongo, working for Getty Reportage, for a series titled “Habibi” about Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons who smuggle their semen out of detention facilities in the hopes of raising a family.

Winner in the Spot News Singles category was an image embodying the debate on race in the United States. The photo by Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post shows a white man and a Black woman disagreeing about the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C., which depicts a freed slave kneeling at Abraham Lincoln’s feet.

The Black Lives Matter movement also featured, with Associated Press photographer John Minchillo’s series about the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd taking third prize in the Spot News Stories category that was won by Italian Lorenzo Tugnoli working for Contrasto for a series of images documenting the devastating port blast in Beirut.

The Contemporary Issues Story category was won by Russian photographer Alexey Vasilyev with a series about the film industry in the northeast Russian region of Sakha. Associated Press photographer Maya Alleruzzo took second place in the category with a story about the Islamic State group enslaving Yazidi women in Iraq.

(Politiken, Panos Pictures/Mads Nissen) In this image released by World Press Photo by Mads Nissen of Politiken, Panos Pictures, which won the World Press Photo of the Year award, and the first prize in the General News Singles category, titled The First Embrace, shows Rosa Luzia Lunardi, 85, embraced by nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza at Viva Bem care home in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Aug. 5.

(The Washington Post/Luis Tato) In this image released by World Press Photo by Luis Tato for The Washington Post, part of a series titled Locust Invasion in East Africa which won third prize in the Nature Stories category, shows Henry Lenayasa, chief of the settlement of Archers Post in Samburu County, Kenya, trying to scare away a massive swarm of locusts ravaging grazing area on April 24. Locust swarms devastated large areas of land, just as the coronavirus outbreak had begun to disrupt livelihoods.

(Agencia Lusa/ Nuno Andre Ferreira) In this image released by World Press Photo by Nuno Andre Ferreira for Agencia Lusa, titled Forest Fire, which won third prize in the Spot News Singles category, shows a child sitting inside a car close by a forest fire in Oliveira de Frades, Portugal, on Sept. 7.

(The Washington Post/Lorenzo Tugnoli) In this image released by World Press Photo by Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post, part of a series titled Port Explosion in Beirut, which won first prize in the Spot News Stories category, shows Abdullah Dalloul walking in the ruins of his former home on Aug. 14, which was destroyed by the blast in the port of Beirut, Lebanon. Following the explosion, he and his family squatted in the damaged building with no water or electricity.

(World Press Photo/Jaime Culebras) In this image released by World Press Photo by Jaime Culebras, titled New Life, which won third prize in the Nature Singles category, shows the eggs of a Wiley’s glass frog hanging on the tip of a leaf in tropical Andean cloud forest near the Yanayacu Biological Station, Napo, Ecuador, on July 25.

(World Press Photo/Joshua Irwandi) In this image released by World Press Photo by Joshua Irwandi, titled The Human Cost of COVID-19, which won the second prize in the General News Singles category, shows the body of a suspected coronavirus victim wrapped in yellow infectious-waste plastic awaiting a body bag in a hospital in Indonesia on April, 18, 2020.

(The Washington Post/Lorenzo Tugnoli) In this image released by World Press Photo by Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post, part of a series titled Port Explosion in Beirut, which won first prize in the Spot News Stories category, shows an injured man stands near the site of a massive explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon, while firefighters work to put out the fires that engulfed the warehouses after the explosion on Aug. 4.

(Getty Images/Adam Pretty) In this image released by World Press Photo by Adam Pretty for Getty Images, titled Log Pile Bouldering, which won first prize in the Sports Singles category, shows Georg climbs a log pile while training for bouldering in Kochel am See, Bavaria, Germany, on Sept. 15.

(CNN/Ami Vitale) In this image released by World Press Photo by Ami Vitale for CNN, titled Rescue of Giraffes from Flooding Island, which won the first prize in the Nature Singles category, shows a Rothschild’s giraffe being transported to safety in a custom-built barge from a flooded Longicharo Island, Lake Baringo, in western Kenya, on Dec. 3.

(Divergence-Images/Jeremy Lempin) In this image released by World Press Photo by Jeremy Lempin for Divergence-Images, titled Doctor Peyo and Mister Hassen, which won second prize in the Contemporary Issues category, shows Marion, 24, who has metastatic cancer, embracing son Ethan, 7, in the presence of Peyo, a horse used in animal-assisted therapy in the Selene Palliative Care Unit at the Centre Hospitalier de Calais in Calais, France, on Nov. 30.

(World Press Photo/Vaghinak Ghazaryan) In this image released by World Press Photo by Vaghinak Ghazaryan, titled Resting Soldier, which won the third prize in the Contemporary Issues Singles category shows a soldier who lies in a trench, resting on a plastic cover in the northeastern part of Syunik, Nerkin Khndzoresk, Armenia, on Oct. 31.

(Podium Photos/Fereshteh Eslahi) In this image released by World Press Photo by Fereshteh Eslahi for Podium Photos, titled Thoughts of Flight, part of a series which won third prize in the Sports Stories category, shows Saeed Ramin, a professional practitioner of parkour enjoying time with friends at Kosar Dam Lake, near Gachsaran, Iran, on Sept. 9.

(The Associated Press/John Minchillo) In this image released by World Press Photo by John Minchillo for The Associated Press, part of a series titled Minneapolis Unrest: The George Floyd Aftermath, which won third prize in the Spot News Stories category, shows police firing tear gas on demonstrators at the intersection of East Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue in St. Paul, Minn., on May 29 near the precinct station of the officers who arrested George Floyd.

(The Associated Press/John Minchillo) In this image released by World Press Photo by John Minchillo for The Associated Press, part of a series titled Minneapolis Unrest: The George Floyd Aftermath, which won third prize in the Spot News Stories category, shows protesters joining arms in defiance during a demonstration outside the burning Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct building in Minneapolis on May 28.