“Instead of them looking at me as a photographer with a camera pointing at them, they were in control of the technology.”
América Yanira López and her children Miguel Alejandro, Philipe Joshua and Adriana Camilla were kidnapped while trying to cross a border.Credit:America Yanira Lopez and Adam Ferguson
Ferguson hoped the organic approach would inspire empathy rather than sympathy in his audience.
“They braced like this without any prompting,” he said of Carlos and Enderson. “Carlos squatted down and held his son, who put his hand on his father’s cheek.”
Ferguson pitched the idea to The New York Times when President Biden took office in the United States, anticipating a surge of migrants on the border.
“I wanted to add something new to the conversation,” Ferguson said.
His series included a photo of one-year-old Jasmine Romina Aguilar, taken in collaboration with her mother, Mariola Hernandez. Aguilar and Hernandez were tricked by smugglers into believing they had made it onto US soil but were left in a warehouse near Ciudad Juarez among gangs and corrupt Mexican officials.
Stephany Solano, 17, studied computer science but her life changed when her father developed a chronic kidney illness two years ago.Credit:Stephany Solano and Adam Ferguson
America Yanira Lopez took her photo on the day she and her children were released by a cartel. She left behind an abusive husband and poverty and had been in captivity with her children for a month when the photo was taken.
Stephany Solano, a 17-year-old migrant from Guatemala, took her self-portrait at an informal migrant camp at a municipal park in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Growing up, Solano enjoyed studying computer science but when her father developed a chronic kidney illness two years ago, he lost his job. The family barely got by and one day decided to send Stephany and her mother to the US to find work, leaving Stephany’s father behind.
Loading
The Sony World Photography Awards is one of the most important fixtures in the global photographic calendar and is run by The World Photography Organisation.
Mike Trow, chair of the competition, said there were other stories that the jury admired deeply but that Adam’s series stood out because “it speaks so eloquently and warmly of people under hardship but who hold on to their decency and love regardless of place and wealth.”
Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.