Ali Hamed-Haqdust won the first prize in the camera photograph category, the UNESCO office in Kabul announced last Tuesday.
"The photographer of the winning contest image of the carousel made a strong composition, getting down on the ground and shooting upwards so the whole sky is filled with the circling horses,” a jury directed by the Paris-based prominent Iranian photographer Reza Deghati commented.
"The action, youthfulness and color in this image speaks to the future, but also gives a nod to the traditional past as the children are leaning off of their horses to pick up a coin, imitating their national game of Buzkashi,” the jury added.
The second and third prizes went to Reza Sahel and Mohammad-Ali Sheida respectively.
In the mobile-phone category Iranian photographer Hamidreza Rahmani took the first prize and the second and third prizes were awarded to Afghan photographers Najeeb Azad and Nasrullah Alili.
Members of the jury included Reza Yemak, Sadie Quarrier, Rada Akbar and Simon Norfolk.
"One of the most difficult tasks for strengthening state legitimacy of post-conflict states is to build a shared national identity and to restore a form of social capital,” Patricia McPhillips, the director of the UNESCO office in Kabul, said.
"In the past decade, UNESCO has contributed to this task through its cultural projects in Afghanistan,” she added.
UNESCO and the Afghan government organized the competition from October 21, 2015 to March 21, 2016 to promote a sense of national identity and belonging through Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage.
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