Shadman Shahid won Bird in Flight Prize ’19

The jury of Bird in Flight Prize ’19 selected one winner out of the ten participating photographers from the shortlist. Bangladeshi photographer Shadman Shahid was awarded the main prize — €2000. The winner was announced at an award ceremony in Kyiv on 11 October.

No Quarter is the story of a couple from Bangladesh, Alo and Sagor, who have been in an abusive relationship for more than 20 years now. It is a docu-fiction created based on the many interviews that I have taken of Alo. During the interviews, she shared memories that have left the deepest marks, like sharing snapshots from a family album except these snapshots are not as biased towards happy memories as most family albums are. I have tried to visualize her story by making a docu-fictional family album using images from their actual family album and staged images that were created based on the memories she shared with me.

The Bird in Flight Prize is a contest organized by Bird in Flight magazine. This was the second time the contest was held. This year, the jury consists of photographer and member of Magnum Photos Antoine d’Agata, YET Magazine editor-in-chief Salvatore Vitale, member of the Unseen advisory committee Emilia van Lynden, artist Ola Lanko, photographers Dmitry Kostyukov and Vlad Sokhin. The concept of the Bird in Flight Prize is to support photographers who think outside the box of traditional artistic standards.