Getty Images announces the winners of its global Instagram grant

Getty Images have announced the winners of its third annual Getty Images Instagram Grant. The partnership between Getty and Instagram recognises the talent and opportunities that can develop from the photo sharing app.

The competition nurtures up and coming photographic talent by offering a $10,000 grant to the winners as well as mentorship from a Getty images photojournalist, and the opportunity to have their work exhibited in its London gallery. “Now in its third year, the grant programme was founded to support photographers, videographers and visual artists using Instagram to document stories from underrepresented communities around the world,” says Getty.

The first recipient of this year’s grant is India-based Saumya Khandelwa l whose photojournalism works across “social issues including gender and the environment,” Getty explains. Saumya’s project, Child Brides of Shravasti “particularly impressed the judges,” documenting the daily lives of young girls in Uttar Pradesh who are made to enter into early marriages.

The second winner, LA-based Isadora Kosofsky, uses her camera to highlight “American social issues from a humanisitic stance”. Her photography displays a number of difficult subjects facing the country “from depicting ageing and poverty to mental health and substance abuse”. The honesty in her “harrowing images of imprisoned minors were singled out by the jury,” says Getty.

Getty and Instagram’s final recipient is Nina Robinson, a photographer based in Arkansas who began documenting the everyday moments of her family’s rural home, before expanding the project to also include African-American communities. An Arkansas Family Album, a collection of photographs by Nina is an “intimate exploration of loss, love and tradition in a rural black Southern community”.

“At Getty Images we believe in the power of images to move the world, so we are proud to continue our collaboration with Instagram to champion and support new and important voices in visual storytelling via the Getty Images Instagram Grant,” says vice president of news at Getty, Hugh Pinney.

This year’s grant judges were from a multidisciplinary background, including 2015 winner Ismail Ferdous, Pierre Terdjman a photographer and co-founder of Dysturb, assistant photo editor at National Geographic, Kaya Lee Berne, Elizabeth Krist an independent photo editor and founder of Women Photograph, Daniella Zalcman.

“It’s incredible to see how the photography community — from documentarians to young, emerging photographers — is using Instagram to speak to the world’s most critical issues through their work,” says head of creative community at Instagram, Pamela Chen, on this year’s grant recipients.

An exhibition of the recipients work is currently on show at the Getty Images Gallery in London from the 24 October – 4 November.