TEHRAN -- Iranian documentary and news photographer Ali Hamed Haqdoust has received the “Award of Excellence” in the “Pictures of the Year Asia 2022” mission, iFilm reported.
Photographers from the Asian continent competed in two categories of single photos and photo collections in different fields of competition, including COVID-19, Spot News, Portraits, Nature & Environment, COVID-19 Picture Story, COVID-19 Expressions, Issue Reporting Picture Story, Cultural Practices, and Photographer of the Year, Asia.
According to the event’s official website, Pictures of the Year International is a program of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism.
The POY Asia’s mission is “to increase the representation of the Asian photographers and stories by celebrating and sharing excellence in documentary and artistic visual storytelling from the continent of Asia,” writes the event’s platform.
Accordingly, the POY Asia is an official program of Pictures of the Year International (POYi), the world’s oldest competition for photojournalists and documentary photographers.
Born in 1981 in Tabriz city in northwestern Iran, Haqdoust is a freelance photographer who is dedicated to documenting Iranian life style.
He has produced images of humanitarian issues that have made headlines in Iran.
His photos, which focus on raising awareness of human rights, have been published by AP Images, Sipa press, Time, New York Times, National Geographic, Washington post, Boston, Guardian, and several Iranian newspapers and news agencies.
He has also documented Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey. He has published critically acclaimed collections of his photography with the group exhibition and his works have also been accepted in most of domestic festivals in Iran.