Courtesy of
Espen Rasmussen
LEICA Fotografie International / BarTur Award Photojournalist of the Year
Espen Rasmussen
Winner
Espen Rasmussen (b. 1976) is a Norwegian photographer and member of the VII Photo Agency. He works as a picture editor and producer in the Stories Hub in Norway's leading daily newspaper VG as well as working both on long-term assignments for the paper and his own projects as a photographer.
He focuses on topics related to humanitarian og social issues and challenges related to climate change. Some of Rasmussen's work includes his eight-year-long project Transit, about refugees and displacement all over the world, published by Dewi Lewis in 2011. The project White Rage, is about right-wing movements, Neo-nazism, and fascism in Europe, the US, and Hard.Land, a journey trough the U.S. Rust Belt, documenting the Blue Collar America in the years before the election of Trump.
He has won numerous awards for his work, including three in World Press Photo, several in the Picture of the Year International (POYi) and 45 in the Norwegian Picture of the Year.
Rasmussen is freelance lecturing photography at schools such as the Oslo University College and Bilder Nordic School of Photography. He is also frequently giving presentations at photo festivals and for a wide range of other audiences. For the last ten years, he has been one of three editors/mentors in the Norwegian Journal of Photography (NJP).
His work has been exhibited widely around the world and his work has appeared in magazines such as New York Times, Paris Match, Time, Newsweek and National Geographic.
The Flight
Ukraine
2021
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, creating the largest refugee crisis seen in Europe since World War 2. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, mostly women and children, crossed the border between Ukraine and Poland in the days after the invasion. Waiting in lines at the border for up to several days, people came into Poland exhausted and frightened. They were met by locals, people from all over Poland and the rest of Europe, trying to provide support and logistics for the refugees. As of end-June 2022, UNHCR estimates that close to 5.5 million Ukrainians are living as refugees all over Europe, a huge part of them in neighbouring Poland.