Photographers vie for £20,000 prize
Fiachra Gibbons, arts correspondent
Friday November 15, 2002
The Guardian

A woman who befriends strangers in the street, a fashionisto, and a man obsessed by the war-emptied landscapes of Afghanistan have been shortlisted for the £20,000 Citibank Award, Britain's most prestigious photography prize.

Jürgen Teller is the best known of the four nominees, having photographed the fashion world from model Kristen McMenamy to Sir Elton John. The 39-year-old German mixes typically glossy shoots with grittier, more truthful portraits - a tired Kate Moss with badly dyed hair - as well as surreal photographs of Baltic and central European beauty queens.

By contrast the subjects of the early favourite, Jitka Hanzlova, could not be more ordinary. Czech-born Hanzlova, 44, the only photographer to be nominated twice for the prize, bumps into her subjects in the streets and often gets to know them well before she starts to photograph them.

The resulting large-scale pictures often have great empathy and sensitivity. She was nominated for her shots of young south Londoners for the Brixton Studio exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery in London this year.

Amsterdam-based Bertien van Manen's pictures of a seldom-seen side of Chinese life have a similar documentary feel: girls sleeping in minibuses, taking showers or going to discos in Shanghai. All attempt to catch a country at a moment of great change, according to the judges.

In contrast, Londoner Simon Norfolk's pictures of Afghanistan are mostly without people. After a career spent covering poll tax riots, Northern Ireland and the Gulf war for Living Marxism magazine, these images are about the aftermath of conflict, the wrecked villages, monuments and military equipment littering the landscape.

An exhibition of all the work shortlisted for the prize opens at the Photographers' Gallery in London on January 31, before touring to Madrid and Düsseldorf. The winner will be announced on February 27.