Achi news desk-
For the first time in 25 years, Quebec won the prestigious World Press Photo photography competition.
Documentary photographer Charles-Frédéric Ouellette is one of the winners in the North and Central America region, in the “single photos” category.
The World Press Photo Montreal Expo team made the announcement Wednesday.
It said the World Press Photo Foundation chose Quebecer for a photo taken during the Quebec forest fires in the summer of 2023. The black-and-white photo, showing emergency firefighters, was published in the Globe and Mail.
The picture is called “A Day in the Life of a Quebec Firefighter”. It shows Theo Dageno scanning the horizon at the very end of a tour, to make sure there is no smoke on the horizon.
“This image resonates like a long silence, far from the world of humans. It evokes this moment when we realize that we are an integral part of the ecosystem, that our survival depends on our understanding of nature,” Ouellet said in a press release.
The photo will be shown at the World Press Photo Montreal Expo in the Bonsecours market from August 28 to October 14, as well as in the cities where the exhibition will stop during 2024.
The Montreal team noted that in 1999 Roger Lemoine was the first Quebecer to win an award in the International Photo Contest.
– This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on April 3, 2024.
