Kyiv Post photographer Anastasia Vlasova won two awards in the University of Missouri's prestigious College Photographer of the Year competition.
Vlasova won the Gold Medal in the spot news category for a poignant photograph of one of the 298 people killed when Kremlin-backed separatists allegedly shot down Malaysian Airlines flight 17 in eastern Ukraine in July. The image of the body of naked victim, lying in a field of flowers, can be found here. She will receive the medal at a ceremony in Columbia, Missouri, on April 10-11.
She also won the Award of Excellence in the documentary category for a series of photographs from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas called “The Sense of War.” It can be found here.
Vlasova, who has worked at the Kyiv Post for 17 months, has so far this year spent three months covering the war-torn eastern oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk as well as Russian-annexed Crimea. She is in her final year of studies for a master’s degree in journalism at the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv.
“I feel proud and thrilled to be rewarded with such an honorable award,” Vlasova said. “I really didn’t expect that because the pictures in the contest are very strong, taken by a bunch of talented photographers around the world. It’s great that I can show the world my project about crisis in Ukraine, so probably they will know more about whats happening here. The most horrible thing that I see in Donbas is that war comes very close with the everyday life, and that’s what I wanted to show in my story.”
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner said that, coming on top of the staff’s winning of the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism this year, he is grateful that the newspaper’s journalism is getting international recognition. “Anastasia has played an important role in our coverage, showing courage, talent and tenacity during the EuroMaidan Revolution and Russia’s war against Ukraine. She is always ready to go to the scene, to be at the center of the action.”
The College Photographer of the Year competition was founded by Cliff and Vi Edom in 1945 and is administered by the University of Missouri, home of the oldest and — according to many rankings – best journalism school in America.
On its website, the organizers write: “Winning a contest does not make a photographer, but it can be a bellwether of talent. College Photographers of the Year have gone on to become outstanding professional photographers and leaders in the field of photojournalism – the list of alumni is long and prestigious.”
More information about the College Photographer of the Year contest can be found here
