The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in collaboration with the Afghan government and TOLOnews, announced the winners of this year’s Kabul Photo Biennale on Wednesday evening.
The contest was run over two months and winners were announced on Wednesday at the opening of the exhibition.
This year’s competition was about “Rebirth” and according to UNESCO staff, the vast majority of the pictures submitted reflected this theme.
Sixty pictures were selected as the jury’s choice out of over 3,000 entries.
The exhibition, which is open to the public, is at Bagh-e-Babur in Kabul, and the selected photos will be on display for about a month.
In the camera section, first place went to Hedayatullah Amid for the picture titled “Martial Arts” - as pictured above.
Second place went to Rahmat Gul for the picture titled “Around and Around”.
Third place was won by Jawad Jalali for “Floating”.
An honorable mention was awarded to Omer Khan for “In Front Of Darul Aman Palace”.
In the mobile phone category the three winners, in no specific order, were Farshad Usyan for “Mr Afghanistan Competition”; Khoshhal Barialai for “Playing at Dusk” and Abdul Latif Azimi for “Soldiering On” respectively.
“The exhibition included pictures with a new theme and showing issues that gives hope,” said Massoud Husaini, a jury member said.
Meanwhile, Hedayatullah Amid, the winner of the first prize said he is excited about the achievement and spoke about the subject of his photograph.
“The girl in the picture (Martial Arts) is Sima Azimi, she is 21 years old; she opened a martial arts club with the help of her father in 2015,” he said.
“The pictures we see here give us hope for the future; every picture had its own message to the people,” said Wakil Kohsar, a journalist.