Prestigious award for Joint Danube Survey 3 photo essay
Prestigious award for Joint Danube Survey 3 photo essay
Photographer André Künzelmann was awarded the ‘Deutscher Preis für Wissenschaftsfotografie’, a prestigious award for science photography for his work on the Joint Danube Survey 3 last year.
The award-winning images from André Künzelmann, staff
photographer of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental
Research, capture the delicate work of the Joint Danube
Survey 3 while while encouraging viewers to draw. closer to
the river and learn more about it.
© André Künzelmann,
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung
The science photography award ‘Deutscher Preis für Wissenschaftsfotografie’ is given annually by the magazine Bild der Wissenschaft and the press office Brendel. This year’s winning photo essay ‘Joint Danube Survey 3’ taken by André Künzelmann, a staff photographer of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ ), in close cooperation with scientist Werner Brack, last summer during the sampling work of JDS3.
“The photographer has succeeded in capturing the many aspects of scientific work in this essay: plants, dead fish, plastic buckets and Wellington boots are equally convincing ingredients of research as the sophisticated laboratory on board for analysing samples,” said the judges of the competition. “The composition of the photos invites the observer to learn more about the river expedition.”
Constant pressure not to miss the right moment. “I am delighted about this award, especially as this essay was a particular logistic challenge,” says Mr Künzelmann, a meteorologist by training who has specialised in science photography in the past ten years. “Effectively, I had only two days to get an overview on site, and I did not know the crew beforehand. With the tight schedule of the scientists, where every moment was planned out, additional questions and wishes from an ‘outsider’ like me require a degree of mutual understanding. As a photographer, you are under constant pressure in such a situation, because you don’t want to miss the best moments and you may have to catch them under difficult light situations.”
The Joint Danube Survey is the world’s largest river expedition. It catalyses international cooperation from the 14 main Danube Basin countries and the European Commission. The ICPDR congratulates Mr. Künzelmann for this award in recognition of his exceptional work, thanks the JDS3 crew for their support for this project, and is very happy to have contributed to this success.
