AMSTERDAM: A shocking portrait of an Afghan woman whose ears and nose were sliced off by her husband as punishment for leaving him, taken by Jodi Bieber for Time magazine, won the top World Press Photo prize, Friday. Bibi Aisha, an 18-year-old woman from Oruzgan province in Afghanistan, left her husband complaining of domestic violence. A Taliban commander ordered that she face justice and her husband cut off her nose and ears. She now lives in the United States where she had reconstructive surgery. “This could become one of those pictures – and we have maybe just 10 in our lifetime – where if somebody says ‘you know, that picture of a girl' – you know exactly what you're talkng about,” said jury chairman David Burnett of Contact Press. Although established photo agencies and press bureaus won a fair share of honors for 2010, a trend toward freelancers and unaffiliated photographers continued to grow. Getty Images and Panos each won in five categories, while Reuters had three and The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse each had two. In all, 56 photographers of 23 nationalities won prizes. In an unusual step, the jury gave special mention to a 12-picture series of photographs made by the miners trapped for 69 days in the San Jose mine in Chile, 700 meters underground, before they were rescued on Oct. 13.
