Hamburg, April 26, 2006
For the past 50 years, an international panel of judges at the WORLD PRESS PHOTO Foundation has selected the best and most stirring photos of a given year. This year´s WORLD PRESS PHOTO exhibition again shows moving, haunting images that chronicle the events of the past year. The WORLD PRESS PHOTO 2006 exhibition includes stirring and unsettling pictures of the Iraq War, the Kashmir Earthquake and Hurricane "Katrina" along the U.S. Gulf Coast. It also features equally fascinating photographs from the realms of sports, culture, nature and science.

This time around, the "WORLD PRESS PHOTO OF THE YEAR" is a colour photograph by Finbarr O´Reilly, a Canadian photojournalist. The picture shows the face of a Nigerian woman. Her mouth is covered by the emaciated fingers of her one-year-old child. O´Reilly took the moving picture in August 2005 in north-western Nigeria, West Africa. The Hungarian photographer Tamás Dezsö won second prize in the "Daily Life Stories" category for his Geo feature on Romania. Jan Grarup from Denmark took second prize in the "People in the News Stories" category for his photo feature entitled "Kashmir Earthquake Aftermath," which was published in stern 49/2005. In all, World Press awards were given out in ten categories, to 63 photographers from 25 countries.

The annual WORLD PRESS PHOTO Award is the world´s biggest and most highly acclaimed press photography contest. This year, the best press photos of 2005 were selected from among 83,044 photographs submitted by 4,448 photographers from 122 countries.

G+J CEO Dr. Bernd Kundrun said: "Quality journalism and quality photography are closely connected. Gruner + Jahr stands for both, especially our magazines STERN and GEO, which give equal weight to the power of the word and of pictures. I am delighted that we have the privilege of celebrating the German premiere of the WPP here at our Pressehaus am Baumwall building for the twelfth time. The WPP demonstrates the high standard that photojournalism has reached in the world at this point and impressively shows the power of images in our time."

Tom Jacobi, chief editor of VIEW magazine and Art Director of STERN, added: "Jan Grarup from Denmark won second prize in "People in the News Stories" for the "Kashmir Earthquake Aftermath" feature published in STERN – photos that go deep under the skin, showing the situation following the disastrous earthquake in Pakistan. Jan Grarup is one of those phenomenal photographers who make the world a more compassionate place. His special approach to images shows us events that are hard to comprehend, while always remaining very human and maintaining a sense of dignity."

GEO editor-in-chief Peter Matthias Gaede commented: "For GEO, the WORLD PRESS PHOTO Award is the most important photography award there is. Not so much because of the sheer volume of submissions, but because it is about photojournalism, about feature photography. About work like that done by the French photographer Olivier Jobard, who spent months documenting the flight of a young man from Cameroon all the way to France. GEO published his work, which won a first prize in this year´s WORLD PRESS PHOTO Award, last December, and it is remarkable in every respect, from the photographer´s commitment to the result."

Gruner + Jahr joins STERN and GEO in presenting the Germany premiere of the WORLD PRESS PHOTO exhibition at the G+J-Pressehaus am Baumwall for the twelfth time. Deutsche Bahn has been a partner to the project since 2004. From July 2006, the partners will be hosting the WORLD PRESS PHOTO exhibition in five select ECE shopping centres all over Germany. WORLD PRESS PHOTO is backed by the Netherlands´ Postkoden Loterie and sponsored by Canon and TNT worldwide.

The award-winning WORLD PRESS PHOTO pictures will be on display at the G+J-Pressehaus am Baumwall in Hamburg from Apr 27 to May 21, 2006.
Opening hours: Mo - So 10:00 - 18:00h, Mi 10:00 - 20:00h.
Admission is free.

Enquiries:

Kurt Otto
Head of Market Communications stern/GEO/art
Phone: +49-40-3703-3810
E-Mail: otto.kurt@guj.de