An Italian freelance photographer, Pietro Masturzo, has won the top prize in the World Press Photo competition with his image of an Iranian woman shouting "Allahu Akbar" from a Tehran rooftop at dusk -- one of many who used that form of protest against the results of last June's presidential election.
Judges said Masturzo's photograph captured the tension and emotion as the protests were gathering strength following the disputed vote.
See more of Masturzo's work here
The chair of the jury, Ayperi Karabuda Ecer, said: "The photo shows the beginning of something, the beginning of a huge story. It adds perspectives to news. It touches you both visually and emotionally, and my heart went out to it immediately."
The award carries a cash prize of 10,000 euros.
-- Golnaz Esfandiari
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b5cec384-f26c-4d9e-805e-46fa267ee6d2)
1. World Press Photo of the Year - Pietro Masturzo.
2. Dutch photographer Robin Utrecht received a special mention in the News category. His photo captures the nightmarish final act of Karst Tates, the man who drove his car at full speed through a crowd of spectators in an attempted attack on the Dutch royal family.
3. The first prize in the News category went to Swedish photographer Kent Klich for his photo of a Palestinian living room in the Gaza Strip town of Tuzzah.
4. For the first time ever, the jury gave a special mention to a frame grab from a YouTube video. The image is of a dying Iranian woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, taken shortly after she had been shot in the chest, probably by an Iranian paramilitary. The jury only honours an image of this type if it has played an essential role in news coverage and could not have been made by a professional photographer.
The first exhibition with the award-winning images will be open to the public at the Oude Kerk, Oudekerksplein in Amsterdam on Friday, 23 April 2010. This exhibition will be on show until 20 June 2010 and will subsequently travel to some 100 cities in 45 different countries around the world.
During the two-week judging, the jury viewed a record number of photographs with 101,960 images submitted by 5,847 photographers. The photographers represent 128 different nationalities.