The stories that motivated the winning photographs of PHotoFUNIBER ’19

Six winners of the 1st edition of the international PHotoFUNIBER contest explain details of their photographs.

The Guatemalan Aídan Avila de León was proclaimed the winner by popular vote in the HERITAGE category. This student from the European University of the Atlantic (UNEATLÁNTICO) photographed the Guelaguetza Serrana, a festival held in Oaxaca, a state in southern Mexico.

Publicizing the cultural wealth of those countries that perpetuate their traditions was one of the reasons why he opted to compete in the HERITAGE category. “It is important to show the world the value of preserving these cultures and wealth that it possesses,” he says.

A trip through the Ecological Reserve in Cuyabeno (Ecuador) was the scene of the photograph of Erika Monteros Vizcaíno, which led her to rise as the winner by jury vote in the NATURE category.

A snake appeared on his boat while he was navigating the Cuyabeno River in the middle of the night: “As they shone a flashlight on her and led her away from the boat, I saw one of the best photographs I have ever taken. It was like watching her dance on the water of the river and it filled me with emotion to take a few shots at the camera and capture her movements ”. For Erika, the emotions that the flora and fauna that she photographs make her feel were the reason for opting for the NATURE category.

For other winners, photography also came about spontaneously. The Spanish student Eduardo García Díaz was the winner in the PHOTO JOURNALISM category of the award for FUNIBER scholarship students; Eduardo was walking through the streets of Hi An, a city in Vietnam, when she met an old woman, the protagonist of her next photo: “I was on the outskirts of a market, with a few products to sell. Probably what she got from the sale would be her only livelihood. She was absorbed and indifferent to all the noise around her. ”

Also in everyday objects it is possible to appreciate beauty. It happened on the stairs of the National Library of Buenos Aires. The photography and subsequent montage served to obtain the award by jury vote in the CREATIVE category to the Argentine José María Pérez.

The Portuguese Ricardo Ramos honors with his photograph, awarded by a jury vote in the PHOTO JOURNALISM category, to all the elderly who resist the migration movement in the villages that leaves hundreds of rural spaces empty. The old woman he photographed is, according to the winner, “one of the resistant ones who stayed to live and die in her village on the top of the mountain.” In the case of Gerardo Castillo Patron, a Mexican student winner of the NATURE category of the award for students awarded by FUNIBER, he took his photograph in an area of ​​high mountain in Muna Yucatán, Mexico, from the window of a room that offered views of the vegetation in the area. After the registration closes, the start of public voting for the 2nd edition of the PHotoFUNIBER’20 International Contest will begin on March 23rd. You can find more information at photofuniber.

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