CULTURE: Polish Photographer Wins Prize for Documenting the August War (geotimes.ge)

Rusudan Gvazava (left on the photo), 2009.03.10 12:03
source: geotimes.ge

“I am a bearer of people’s stories,” says Tbilisi-based Polish photographer Justyna Mielnikiewicz as I sit down with her to learn more about her experiences in Georgia. The way in which she bore the message about the August war victims to the world has brought her international acclaim.

Justyna Mielnikiewicz has been awarded second prize at the World Press Photo Competition in the category “People in the News” for her 12 photo storyboard about the August war. This competition is a 52-year old annual contest held in Holland which gives awards in ten categories.

The photographer submitted photos she took for the New York Times. Justyna worked in South Ossetia for three weeks, every day and night from 7 o’clock in the morning till 10 or 11 in the evening. She then edited the photos and chose 15-20 to send daily to the NYT. She was so exhausted that she could not sleep.

“It was so emotional to see so many people unhappy and in trouble, to see the war,” she says. Justyna took about 3000 photos of Georgia-Russia war in total.

Was it safe to shoot photos in South Ossetia? Of course not! Her friends and parents were worrying, telling her: “What are you doing? Are you crazy? Are you doing this to become famous?” Justyna says that she is not ambitious and war is just one of the areas where photographers have to work, but in fact she has already become a world famous photographer.

This year 62 photographers out of 5,508 who submitted portfolios made it to the final. The competition was judged over two weeks. Justyna says she did not expect to win a prize because there were so many contestants. "I was in Poland at my parents’ house and it was my father’s birthday. Suddenly my aunt told us that she had just heard on the radio news that I had been awarded a prize. I was so surprised and received a lot of congratulations," Justyna recalls.

Justyna headed for the war zone on her own initiative, without being given an assignment by a publication. The NYT contacted her asking for photos later, when she was already doing her job.

“When you are in the middle of a war you don’t have time to plan. You just move around, and whenever you see something going on you take photos. Sometimes I think what an idiot I was: I was likely to die but still had the instinct to take photos,” she said. Justyna is now enjoying peacetime in Tbilisi.

“Justyna Mielnikiewicz is an interesting photographer for everyone, and I think her photos are very similar to her character,” reads a review by German journalist Ralph Hälbig on georgien.blogspot.com. Hälbig describes her as a brave and direct person. “A big advantage is her intelligent cultural view of the immediate situation. She can see things in two or more ways,” he says. According to Halbig Justyna can very well capture complex situations in her work, balancing different aspects of everyday life, politics and strange moments in her pictures.

Though the World Press Photo Competition prize was not her first she says it is the most important she has ever earned. The best snaps from the World Press Photo Competition will tour the world and be exhibited in hundreds of places.

Justyna first came to Georgia in 2001 and in 2002 decided to stay here for one year. She has lived here ever since and worked as a freelance photographer for different foreign publications. She is a self-taught photographer. She originally graduated from the Faculty of Arts of the Jagiellonian Institue in Krakow, specializing in new media and film.