Kurdistan Images Win Irish Photographer Shortlist for Prestigious Prize
LONDON - One of the most prestigious photography prizes is up for grabs, and may go to Ivor Prickett for his images of Kurdistan.
The 29-year old Irishman beat out competition from almost 140,000 submissions to be shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Prize.
Prickett’s recent, award-nominated series, Kurdistan is Booming was inspired by a fascination with the region. After moving to Turkey in 2012, Prickett took his first trip to Kurdistan.
“I initially went on a very loose, two-week trip which was both fascinating and frustrating. I came up with very few images. But I went back less than a month later and that’s when the work started. I have since been back three more times... and I am hooked. I love the people.”
The open and friendly culture, Prickett says, makes Kurdistan an easy place to take pictures. The photo essay is driven by his desire to highlight the Kurds’ self-determination 10 ten years after the Iraq war. Prickett’s experience proved the subject to be both rich and multi-layered.
“My entire body of work deals with this complexity and it’s why I am drawn to the region. My series addresses the contrast between the undoubted development going on in Kurdistan and the surrounding turbulence and unrest in places like Syria.”
In pictures, and text on his website, Prickett explores the anniversary of the allied invasion of Iraq through the prism of Erbil’s growing symbols of wealth, balanced with faces reflecting the troubled nearby conflicts and their impact on Kurdistan’s development. Prickett questions whether Kurdistan can continue to stay secure with a cloak of volatility all around it.
The Irishman began taking pictures as a teenager, and got his first professional assignments in 2006, after graduating university. His big break came from a project capturing the images of Croatian Serbs returning home after the war. The photographs won him several awards and a scholarship.
But the photograph Prickett is best known for is that of Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Prickett took one of the last images of Colvin during Egypt’s revolution, a year before her death.
“I was on assignment for the Sunday Times and I was asked to photograph her for a piece she was doing about the uprising. We met briefly in Tahrir Square. It was fleeting, but she struck me as a very kind and strong character.”
In the days following Colvin’s death, the picture Prickett took was seen all over the world. Prickett maintains its wide distribution was due to Colvin’s stature, rather than his talent as a photographer. Despite his modesty, Prickett says the most valuable benefit has been the picture’s power to trigger memory.
“I’m glad the picture was used to remember such a brilliant journalist. After all, that is one of the greatest uses for photography, to remember.”
Prickett’s work in Kurdistan is not finished. He hopes to raise funds to continue his project with a return visit soon.
The shortlisted images will be exhibited in London in May, after the Sony World Photographer of the Year is announced on April 30.