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We are honored to announce the Viewbook PhotoStory 2009 winners. The first annual Viewbook PhotoStory contest has been won by Francesco Giusti and David Favrod with remarkably strong contemporary documentary and conceptual photographic narratives. Naturally the jury had a very difficult task selecting the best works out of the 500 already pre-selected photo stories. The level of submissions were absolutely hight.

Italian photographer Francesco Giusti won the documentary category with an inspiring portrait story of the members of the SAPE, a group of remarkably elegant gentleman from Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo, Africa. The story reflects the wish of young people in particular not to be left apart by society.

Swiss – Japanese David Favrod has won first prize in the conceptual category with a very personal story GAIJIN. ‘Gaijin’ is a Japanese word meaning ‘foreigner’. David; “It is from the feeling of rejection and also from a desire to prove that I am as Japanese as I am Swiss that this work was created. Gaijin is a fictional recital, a tool for my quest for identity, where auto-portraits imply an intimate and solitary relationship that I have with myself. The mirror image is frozen in a figurative alter ego that serves as an anchor point.”

Both artists won prizes with a value exceeding $12.000 including lifelong subscriptions to Viewbook PRO online services and GUP magazine, book publications and an exhibition in the Kahmann Gallery in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The winning series can be viewed on www.viewbookphotostory.com.

Other prizes
The following artists have also been commended in the Viewbook PhotoStory 2009 Awards:

Jury Prizes
2nd Prize-documentary: Khaled Hasan for ‘Living Stone: A community losing its Life’
3rd Prize-documentary: Matteo Armellini for ‘In the Middle of Nowhere’

2nd Prize-conceptual: Ilse Leenders for ‘Tokyo Monogatari’
3rd Prize-conceptual: Thorsten Kirchhoff for ‘Alibi’

Public vote Prizes
1st Prize-documentary: Khaled Hasan for ‘Living Stone: A community losing its Life’
2nd Prize-documentary: Galanakis & Galanou for ‘Gavdos’
3rd Prize-documentary: Jonathan P levy for ‘In Svalbard’

1st Prize-conceptual: Can Eren for ‘Inside of Out’
2nd Prize-conceptual: Maria Rudnaya for ‘Insensible addiction’
3rd Prize-conceptual: David Favrod for ‘Gaijin’

Book publications
All winning photo stories will be published in single books with Blurb, as well as a complete Viewbook PhotoStory 2009 yearbook which covers all winning 2009 stories. The books will be available for sale on 1 November 2009 at www.viewbookphotostory.com

Exhibition
From 19 – 29 November the winning works SAPE by Francesco Giusti and Gaijin by David Favrod will be exhibited in the Kahmann Gallery in Amsterdam. The opening takes place on Friday 19 November, with words and drinks on the house. More information will be available soon on www.viewbookphotostory.com

Remarkably successful 1st year
The first edition of the Viewbook PhotoStory contest received close to 1000 entries from all over the world in just three months time. After a critical pre-selection more then 500 photographic narratives got published on the contest website and 100-thousands of people viewed, voted and commented. An internationally renowned jury selected the three best narratives per category. Viewbook PhotoStory functions as a premium platform for emerging talents to face the establishment. The annual online competition aims to discover inspiring, high-quality photo stories within the photography community and bring them to a broad audience. Submissions for the next years event open March 2010.

For more information please visit www.viewbookphotostory.com and keep up to date with our Twitter!