Pascal Mora is Photographer of the Year
Pascal Mora was the only person to photograph the spectacular arrest of seven Fifa officials at Zurich's luxury Baur au Lac hotel. The Zurich-based photographer has now been named Photographer of the Year by the Swiss Photo Academy.
The Swiss Photo Academy includes 1'000 personalities from culture, politics and photography, primarily Swiss photographers. The award ceremony took place on Friday during Photo16 in Zurich.
A top-class jury of experts led by jury president Res Strehle - the recently retired editor-in-chief of the Tages-Anzeiger has been serving as the new president of the Swiss School of Journalism MAZ since the beginning of the year - had made a preliminary selection for the 2015 Photographer of the Year Award, which was presented for the second time this year. Nominated were the photographer duo Nico Krebs and Taiyo Onorato, Pascal Mora, Anne Morgenstern, Flurina Rothenberger and Meinrad Schade.
Finally, the 1000-strong Swiss Photo Academy chose Pascal Mora as Photographer of the Year. Born in Aargau - Mora grew up in Neuenhof - he turned to photography after his initial training as a recording salesman. He acquired his photographic skills autodidactically and then worked as an assistant in the photo studio of the women's magazine Annabelle. Since 2006, the 32-year-old has been working as a freelance photographer and lives in Zurich. His focus is on reportage and portrait photography. Since 2011 he has been documenting the aftermath of the Arab Spring, living in Cairo and traveling to crisis areas such as Syria and Libya, among others. In 2015, one of his main focuses was the refugee crisis in Europe. Then, on May 27, 2015, the photojournalist took the picture that today is a symbol of Fifa's disintegration. Mora was the only one to capture the arrest of seven Fifa officials at Zurich's luxury Baur au Lac hotel. Mora took the picture on behalf of the New York Times.
Lifetime Award for Robert Frank
With the Lifetime Award, the jury of the Swiss Photo Academy also honors the life's work of the 91-year-old "American from Zurich" (Tagesanzeiger) Robert Frank. Born in Zurich in 1924, Frank sought his fortune in the United States toward the end of World War II. He was to become world famous and his 1959 book "The Americans" a standard work of photography. The living legend is considered "the most famous photographer in the world" (Das Magazin).
The two winners, Pascal Mora and Robert Frank, were honored during the award ceremony at the photo16 exhibition. Photo16 also shows pictures of the winners as well as of the four nominees in a special exhibition. With 150 exhibitors and an expected number of over 25,000 visitors, Photo16 is by far the largest and most important photography exhibition in Switzerland and will take place from Friday, January 8 to Tuesday, January 12, 2016 in five industrial halls of the Maag in Zurich.
