Storytelling Through Photography

 

Over the past ten years, Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year has been moved by the incredible touching stories of our entrants, each highlighting the importance of food and photography in their own unique ways. In this special year, we are delighted to share more of these stories from across the globe.

 

Photography is so influential in this storytelling. We are honoured to dedicate two categories to The World Food Programme, both showing the humanitarian aspects of food through the medium of photography. A few years ago we introduced our World Food Programme Storytellers Award. 

 

This exciting award is to celebrate the best photos submitted by the participants of the WFP Storytellers project worldwide. The World Food Programme Storytellers brings storytelling into young people’s lives in communities across the globe, including refugee youth, so they can learn how to use photography to communicate their own stories.

 

We asked Gioacchino Gargano, Project Co-Ordinator for WFP Storytellers, to share with us why this award is so important.

‘In all humanitarian crisis, food, and the sharing of it, becomes a lifeline, a repeated ritual where one's hope for the future, for making it through the hardships of the present, for a better tomorrow, is made tangible, is found through the sating of one's hunger and the renewal of fellowship with others.

This award is so special because it gives visibility to communities who are fighting for a better life and it sheds a light on the essential relationship between getting access to nutritious food and developing hopes for a brighter future.’

 

With just a few weeks to go until the unveil of our 2021 WFP Storytellers finalists, we wanted to take a look back at our 2020 winner. Jeyabol Hoque was awarded 1^st place with the amazing shot – ‘Lost in the Market.’

 

 

Jeyabol, 26 year old Rohingya refugee living in Bangladesh, shared with us an insight after this award-winning shot.

‘When I studied Storytelling, I realised this isn’t about me only, this is about a lot of other people.’

 

 

To date, WFP has delivered its Storytellers project to over 300 students in eight countries: Jordan, Chad, Guatemala, Uganda and Bangladesh, Djibouti, Ecuador and Mauritania. The project will also be launched in Iraq and Kenya.

 

Storytellers may enter any picture that shows food, in any context – preparing meals, cooking, lunchtime in their communities. Anything that shows the role of food in their lives.

 

This year, we have seen some incredible entries to this category, with a breath-taking shortlist.

 

We are so excited to discover our 2021 WFP Storytellers Award Winner. Keep tuned for the announcement on the 27 April, 8pm BST on our YouTube Chanel.