Czech Press Photo 2021

This year, the National Museum will once again showcase the best the Czech Press Photo has to offer. This year, the large-format photographs that you will be able to admire are not just the winners of the 27th year of this prestigious competition, but also photographs that participated in the first year of the Czech Photo Junior competition dedicated to young photographers attending primary and secondary schools.

Eight photography categories were announced for this year’s edition and 250 photographers took part in the contest, submitting over four thousand photos. Entries were being submitted electronically during September. The expert international jury sat from October 17 to October 19 in the Czech Photo Centre gallery and consisted of:  the chairman of the jury Petr Mlch, the head of the ČTK (Czech News Agency) photobank, Alžběta Jungrová from 400ASA Gallery, Adrian Evans, director of Panos Pictures, Sean Gallup, photographer for Getty Images and Jan Zátorský from Mafra a.s.

The photograph of the year was taken by Petr Topič from the media company Mafra a.s.. The photograph is a part of a series called Destruction, which won the first prize in the News category. The entire series documents the extent of the damage caused by the devastating tornado that swept through the villages of South Moravia.

Since its inception, the competition has also included the Prague Grant award – a year-long creative scholarship awarded by the Prague City Hall to a photographer whose task is to capture how the capital city changes over time. Gradually, a comprehensive collection of photographs documenting Prague and its development is being created. The winner of the Prague Grant was personally picked by the mayor of Prague, Zdeněk Hřib. This year, the grant was awarded to Petr Vrabec, who succeeded with his project called the Prague’s Periphery.

The nominated photographs can be found at www.czechphoto.org

The CZECH PRESS PHOTO 2021 competition and exhibition is organised by:

Czech Photo o.p.s. and the National Museum
with the financial support of the capital city of Prague
under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Mayor of Prague