LONDON, UK.- Four photographers have been shortlisted for the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2005, a major international photography prize. The exhibition will be from 8 April – 5 June 2005 at the Gallery and the award ceremony will take place on 11 May 2005. In its inaugural year, the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize continues The Photographers’ Gallery’s commitment to showcasing new talent and highlighting the best of international photography practice. With generous support from the new sponsors, Deutsche Börse, the Prize continues as one of the most prominent exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery as well as being placed amongst the most prestigious international awards.

The four shortlisted photographers are as follows: Luc Delahaye (b.1962, France) was selected for the exhibition Luc Delahaye-Photographs (5 February-3 May 2004) at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford. Delahaye’s work includes a series of monumentally sized panoramas that evoke the traditions of history painting and also the compositions of mid-19th century war photography. Delahaye’s approach to representing the sites and aftermath of contemporary wars and civil unrest consciously determines an alternative to the conventions of photojournalism.

J H Engström(b.1969, Sweden) JH Engström has been selected for the publication Trying to Dance (Journal, 2004). The book confidently and imaginatively blends portraits of friends, interiors and evocative landscapes. Engström builds his pictorial momentum through mixing lyrical colour imagery with graphic, distressed, black and white photography. Trying to Dance powerfully conveys the sense of his emotive and subjective experiences of the people and places around him.

Jörg Sasse (b. 1962, Germany) Rather than ‘taking’ photographs, Jörg Sasse, ‘finds’ them. The departure point for his enigmatic works are anonymous snapshots, through which he sorts in their thousands. Sasse then works on the vernacular photographs that he is intuitively drawn to, often focussing in on a small detail within an image. He crops, saturates, blurs and pixelates the photographs he selects, creating new pictures but ones that have strange and yet familiar qualities to them. Sasse was nominated for the exhibition at Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf, Frankfurt, Germany (3 September–3 November 2004).

Stephen Shore (b. 1947, USA) was selected for his publication Uncommon Places: The Complete Works (Thames & Hudson, 2004). During the 1970s, Shore travelled across the United States, photographing street corners, diners, gas stations and motel rooms of ordinary America –environments that were curious and strangely alien to the New York based Shore. Uncommon Places was first published in 1982 and this year Shore reassessed and increased the scope of the body of work to include previously unseen works. This reflects the influence on the directions of conceptual colour photography that Stephen Shore’s photography continues to hold.

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize aims to reward a living photographer, of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution to the medium of photography during the past year. The shortlisted photographers, selected by a Jury, were nominated for a significant exhibition or publication that took place in Europe between 1 November 2003 – 31 October 2004. These nominations have been made by an Academy, representing photography institutions throughout Europe and invited by The Photographers’ Gallery. The winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize will be announced on 11 May 2005 and will receive £30,000 and the three runners-up will each receive £3,000. The exhibition will be from 8 April – 5 June 2005 at The Photographers’ Gallery and will afterwards be shown at the Frankfurt Headquarters of Deutsche Börse Group. The Chair of the Jury for Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2005 is Paul Wombell, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery. The Jury members are: Anne-Marie Beckmann (Curator of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse); Kate Bush (Editorial Director Contemporary Art and Photography, Phaidon Press, London); Rosa Olivares (Director, EXIT Magazine, Madrid); Christoph Ruys (Director, PhotoMuseum, Antwerp)

Paul Wombell, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, said: “The Jury’s selection, this year, represents a broad range of approaches in contemporary photographic practice. Each photographer has contributed to photography in a unique way. This ranges from those photographers who have achieved an international reputation to those who have achieved success within their field, but who are ready to emerge into the international arena. For the first time this exhibition will place them within a context of excellence, regardless of their status. We look forward to the Jury’s decision on 11 May 2005.”