July 31, 2015

Marta Iwanek wins 2015 photojournalism award

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Marta Iwanek

Kyiv, January 27, 2014: Rows of Internal Affairs Ministry troops seen from the barricades of Hrushevsky Street.

TORONTO – Marta Iwanek is this year’s winner of the Tom Hanson Photojournalism Award presented by the Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) and The Canadian Press. A graduate of the journalism program at Ryerson University in Toronto in 2012, and of the photojournalism program at Loyalist College (Belleville) in 2014, Ms. Iwanek accepted the Hanson award at the CJF gala on June 3.

Tom Hanson was an award-winning photojournalist for The Canadian Press who for 15 years travelled around the world shooting news and sports images. When Hanson died suddenly at age 41 in 2009, his family, friends and colleagues at The Canadian Press and the country’s photojournalism community set up the award as an appropriate way to honor his memory, talent and spirit.

The Hanson Award is administered by The Canadian Journalism Foundation (founded in 1990) and offers a six-week paid internship at The Canadian Press head office in Toronto for a photojournalist in the early stages of his or her career. The annual internship is designed to give a photographer trying to break into the business the chance to perform on the national stage.

“I was impressed by the scope and depth of Marta’s portfolio, and it was a privilege to get to know her through her photographs,” said Heidi Glorieux-Kaspar, a jury member and mother of the late photojournalist. “I was very much touched by the understanding and delicacy with which she approaches sensitive subjects which, in turn, reminded me of photos Tom would have taken dealing with the human condition.”

“For young photojournalists starting their career, having this type of mentoring opportunity is an incredible gift,” said Ms. Iwanek. “I hope to honor Tom’s legacy of storytelling images and aspire to the same passion, work ethic and journalistic integrity that shaped his work.” Ms. Iwanek is the sixth recipient of the award.

When asked why she chose photojournalism as a medium of reporting, Ms. Iwanek said that you don’t need language for this – you can tell the story through storytelling images.

Marta Iwanek receives the Tom Hanson Photojournalism Award at the Canadian Journalism Foundation gala.

Canadian Journalism Foundation

Marta Iwanek receives the Tom Hanson Photojournalism Award at the Canadian Journalism Foundation gala.

In November 2013 Ms. Iwanek went to Ukraine to make a film with Nove Pokolinnia (the organization is known in Canada as Help us Help the Children and runs camps in the Carpathians for orphans). Although Ms. Iwanek had planned to be in Kyiv for a week, she stayed for three months as the events on the Maidan grew into a mammoth movement. While in Kyiv, she worked as a freelance photographer and her photos were accepted by Maclean’s magazine and published as “The Maidan Story.” For the Canadian Journalism Foundation awards, Maclean’s made a video film of the issue, using Ms. Iwanek’s photos.

What does Ms. Iwanek remember most about the Maidan? The fact that most of the participants were just ordinary people who had come to the Maidan not because they were politicized or had some special resentments, but because they had reached a point where they “couldn’t take it any more” – couldn’t take the corruption, fraud, lies and insecurity in their daily lives. She said she was most surprised by how well everything was organized during the demonstrations. There was hot food for everyone, a security system (samo-oborona) functioned, medical services were provided, people did things because they had to be done. This was particularly noticed by foreign journalists who had been to other places, for example Syria, where there had been chaos and looting.

Currently, Ms. Iwanek is working on contract for the Toronto Star. She said that in her graduating class at Loyalist College there were about 50-60 students at the start of the year-and-a-half course, some 10-12 students completed the course, and currently only four or five have jobs. Fortunately, this journalism award helped Ms. Iwanek. But still, she said, “you just have to work very hard.”

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