Balazs Gardi

2006 Professional Winner

Balazs Gardi, 30, from Budapest, Hungary, has been a freelance photographer since August, 2003, when he left the staff of the largest Hungarian national daily newspaper, Nepszabadsag, where he had worked since 1996. He was a staff photographer at Nepszava for a year before that.

He studied in the Budapest School of Photography from 1993-1995 and in the School of Photojournalism of the Association of Hungarian Journalists in 1995-1996. He studied for a term at Cardiff University School of Journalism and Media and Cultural Studies in Wales with a grant from Reuters Foundation in 2000. That year he was chosen for a World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and he was a finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award.

He has been selected Photographer of the Year in Hungary three times — in 1999, 2000, and 2002. He was named one of PDN's "30 under 30" in 2002.

Gardi is a board member of the Association of Hungarian Press Photographers, member of the Association of Hungarian Journalists and the Association of Hungarian Photographic Artists.

He is currently working on a documentary of the Eastern European Roma community.

The judges winnowed the professional entries down from 240 to five applications this year before selecting Gardi for the grant. The others in the top five, in no particular order, are Simon Roberts, freelance from England; Lana K. Slezic, freelance from Ontario, Canada; Stuart Freedman, freelance from England; and David Holloway, freelance photographer/writer from Arlington, Va.

The judging was done at Syracuse University on Feb. 25, 2006. Judges were Pim Van Hemmen, director of photography at the Newark Star Ledger; Ed Kashi, freelance documentary photographer from New Jersey; and Bob Gilka, former National Geographic director of photography and adjunct professor of photojournalism and picture editing at Syracuse University.