Jonathan Torgovnik has won the Discovery prize at this year'sRencontre d'Arles photography festival for Intended Consequences, his powerful series of portraits of women who were brutally raped in the Rwandan genocide and the children they bore as a result. Torgovnik, who is based in South Africa, photographed in Rwanda for three years and interviewed all his subjects about their experiences. He is co-founder of Foundation Rwanda and, in his acceptance speech, said he would be donating a large portion of his prize money of €25,000 (£19,850) to the organisation, which supports the women and children and raises awareness about the consequences of sexual violence through photography and film.
The Latin American Photobook (Aperture), a historical overview of the form edited by Horacio Fernandez, deservedly won the historical book award.
One of my personal favourite photobooks from 2011, Red Headed Peckerwood (Mack) by Christian Patterson took the author book award. A blend of fact and fiction, oblique narrative and found ephemera, the book retraces the infamous killing spree of Charlie Starkweather, 19, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Anne Fugate, across Nebraska and into Wyoming in 1958. I enthused about the book when it came out and also included it in my list of best photobooks of 2011. It is a beautifully realised project, despite its visceral subject matter, and fully deserves the prize.
British-based independent publishers Mack are on a roll at Arles, having now won the author book award two years running – Taryn Simon's A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters was last year's winner.
The festival's opening week concluded on a celebratory note on 7 July with a well-received screening of Journal of France, a film on the great French photographer Raymond Depardon made by his wife and sound recordist, Claudine Nougaret.
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