Adam Lach, one of the finalists of 2014 Grand Prix Fotofestiwal, was awarded with an honorable mention in the prestigious American Pictures of the Year International 2014 (Award of Excellence in Issue Reporting Picture Story category). The jury appreciated his photo reportage entitled Stigma and telling a story of a family of Romanian Romas consisting of sixty people and living in an encampment in Wrocław in the neighborhood called Psie Pole. Adam Lach concentrates on their family life, stories they experienced and their struggles with various forms of aggression. There are no colorful scenes of magic, camp fires and caravans filled with merry songs. Instead, we can see everyday life of the Romas, life that isn’t very different from ours if we look at it from the perspective of family, emotions and relationship between people.
Pictures of the Year International (POY) was launched in the 1940s. It is one of the most important – if not the most important – competition in the United States with thousands of applications from photographers from around the world.
The honorably mentioned reportage by Adam Lach can be seen here: www.poyi.org
