Orsi Ajpek

Orsi Ajpek was selected for the 2023 Shortlist with All she wanted was a photo of the new-born babies and asked that István and Tamás love the twins.

Orsi Ajpek graduated as a photojournalist from the Hungarian Association of Journalists in 2006 and then graduated in Communication and Media from Milton Friedman University in Budapest. She has worked at several Hungarian printed and online publications as a photojournalist and photo editor, as well as head of the photo department. In 2013, she joined the editorial team of the leading Hungarian news portal (Index.hu) and worked for the paper until the resignation of the entire staff. Along with the departing staff, she was involved in the founding of Telex.hu in 2020, where she heads up the photography department. In her work, she focuses on public and political events, and in long-term projects she works on human stories that highlight the deep-seated problems of Hungarian society. She has photographed a series on a wheelchair-bound Paralympian who became disabled due to a medical error, as well as a series on severely disabled autists, and most recently of a rainbow family who were the last such family to adopt in Hungary, due to a change in the law. She has won the Hungarian Press Photography Award eight times and in 2023, she was awarded a special prize by the jury of the Hungarian Press Development Journalism Award.

Alla Konstantinova

Alla Konstantinova was selected for the 2023 Shortlist with She lost consciousness as it was happening and she’s actually grateful she did.” What we know about the rapes perpetrated in Ukraine by Russian soldiers.

Alla Konstantinova (34) before the start of the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lived in a small Russian town called Petrozavodsk. She worked as a regional journalist and was a reporter of at small media outlet Mediazona focused on human rights affairs and police brutality. In September 2019, she wrote an article for Mediazonа about regular practice of torturing prisoners at local Correctional Colony No. 9 Petrozavodsk. Konstantinova was harassed by the prison warden and received threats from one of the colony officers during her investigation. That story was selected as runner-up for the 2020 European Press Prize The Investigative Reporting Award https://www.europeanpressprize.com/article/prisoners-of-a-penal-colony-tell-of-torture/. The head of the Colony No. 9 and his deputy were convicted only in February 2023. They were sentenced to seven years in prison.

In March 2022 Konstantinova left Russia because of the anti-war stance and possible threat of persecution, now she is in Lithuania. A month later she was included on the «foreign agents» list compiled by Russia’s Justice Ministry. In Russia, the term «foreign agent» is tantamount «traitor» or «spy». Konstantinova refuses to comply with the requirements of the Ministry of Justice and keeps writing about the war in Ukraine.