Here Are the Winners of Getty Images’ First-Ever Instagram Grant

Instagram’s popularity and influence is only growing stronger with each year as the platform helps to turn every person into a photographer. Now, reports NPR’s Malaka Gharib, stock photography superpower Getty Images is using Instagram to tell powerful stories with its first-ever Instagram grant.

Gharib writes that last week, Getty Images gave a $10,000 grant, including mentorship from its photographers, to three photographers: Brazilian Adriana Zehbrauskas, Bangladeshi Ismail Ferdous and Russian Dmitry Markov. The grant was designed to draw attention to photojournalists whose work highlights lesser-known and underrepresented communities, writes Gharib. Here's more on the work of the three winners:

Getty Images Instagram grant – in pictures

The Getty Images Instagram grant was founded to reward photographers documenting stories from under-represented communities around the world.

Three recipients were selected based on their bodies of work on Instagram: Ismail Ferdous, Dmitry Markov and Adriana Zehbrauskas. Five other finalists received special mentions. The work was judged by a panel including National Geographic’s David Guttenfelder, TIME’s Kira Pollack, photographers Maggie Steber, Malin Fezehai, and Ramin Talaie, co-founder of @EverydayIran.

Each winner receives a grant of $10,000 (£6,500) and mentorship from one of Getty Images’ award-winning photojournalists

Getty Images Instagram grant – in pictures

Getty Images and Instagram announce three winners for inaugural $10,000 grant

Ferdous received a grant for his project titled ‘After Rana Plaza’, which centers on the surviving relatives of those killed in the tragic 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory.

On how he hopes the award impacts the lives of those in his series Ferdous told In Sight:

“I have to be honest here, with respect to photojournalism, we are no longer living in a time where a photograph is going to stop a war, and the world is more complex now, politically speaking. But I still strongly believe that photographs can have big impacts on people since photography is a language that everyone can read and has a power to educate people and create awareness about issues. I think this is the right time in photojournalism to build awareness through social networks like Instagram because it reaches audiences in high volumes and brings issues into people’s back pocket. Eventually that awareness might create a push to change about an important issue which is not the headline of newspaper.”

These Are the Winners of the First Instagram Grants

When Ismail Ferdous started his yearlong photographic project documenting the aftermath of the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, he turned to Instagram as a way to draw people’s attention to an issue that, he said, concerned all of us. “I didn’t want the world to forget about Rana Plaza,” he told TIME in June.

Now, his work is gaining new attention after it was selected as one of the three recipients of the first Getty Images Instagram Grants, a series of cash prizes given to support stories from underrepresented communities using the photo-sharing app.

Photographers Adriana Zehbrauskas and Dmitry Markov join Ferdous in sharing the three $10,000 grants, which were awarded by a jury that included TIME’s Director of Photography Kira Pollack and photographers David Guttenfelder, Maggie Steber, Malin Fezehai and Ramin Talaie.

“I think the importance of this grant is massive for my project,” says Ferdous. “It took a lot of research and effort to start a project on Instagram with a totally new approach, utilizing photos, stories and audio.”

With the grant, Ferdous wants to expand the project both in its reach and focus, starting with the production of a book. “I also want to connect the dots between the [garment] producers and consumers,” he says. “For example, I recently interviewed and photographed fashion researchers, alternative fashion stores and fair trade organizations in Europe to make the project more dynamic.”

Getty and Instagram Announce Winners of $10K Grants For Underreported Stories

Getty Images, in partnership with Instagram, have announced three winners of the first annual Getty Images Instagram Grant, which recognizes photographers who’ve used the social media platform to tell underreported stories around the world. The winners, all of whom are experienced professional photographers, have documented communities in Bangladesh, Latin America and Russia. They will each receive $10,000 and mentorship from Getty photojournalists, and their work will be part of an exhibit which opens today at Photoville in Brooklyn, New York.

Documentary photographer Ismail Ferdous won for his project “After Rana Plaza,” which documents the lives of the survivors of the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ferdous created the @afterranaplaza Instagram feed to share those stories. Ferdous has an unusual way of sharing his stories on Instagram, publishing still images with audio commentary from his subjects.

Photographers Around The World Are Using Instagram To Document Underrepresented Communities

Instagram is a tool often credited for helping to democratize the field of photography, giving visibility to the amateur artists and photographers who otherwise lack a platform to showcase their work.

Yes, many people use the app to share images of perfectly organized brunch dishes, candid shots of their cats and a bevy of selfies, flooding feeds everywhere and amounting to a saturated field of expressive shots. But others are using Instagram to put a face to the communities that surround them, capturing local people and groups who rarely show up in mainstream media coverage.

Getty Images, a photo service that predates the rise of social media, has not let Instagram's impact go unnoticed. The two have recently teamed up to launch an inaugural grant program aimed at rewarding photographers who are documenting the everyday lives of underrepresented groups around the globe. This year, they received more than 1,200 entries from photographers in 190 different countries, eventually choosing three recipients of the firstGetty Images Instagram Grant who exemplify both exceptional photographic technique and storytelling ability.

Winning photographers Ismail Ferdous of Bangladesh, Adriana Zehbrauskas of Brazil andDmitry Markov of Russia each received $10,000 from Getty and Instagram and the opportunity to engage with mentors from the judging panel. Those judges include National Geographic Photography Fellow David Guttenfelder, Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise for TIME Kira Pollack, documentary photographer Maggie Steber, documentary photographer Malin Fezehai, and co-founder of @EverydayIran and documentary photographer Ramin Talaie.

Getty and Instagram also recognized the work of five other photographers worthy of mention --Tasneem Asultan from UAE; Kevin Cook from the U.S.; Igor Pisuk from Sweden; Cassandra Giraldo from the U.S. and Ako Salemi from Iran -- all of whom will also receive mentorship from a member of the Getty Instagram Grant judging team.

Getty Images names the three global recipients of its inaugural Instagram grant program

Stock photography service Getty Images has announced the winners of its inaugural grant program, which is centered around the popular photo-sharing social network Instagram. What makes this even more noteworthy is the fact that these recipients have been documenting stories from underrepresented communities from around the world.

In May, Getty collaborated with Instagram to launch its grant program, receiving 1,200 entries from across 109 countries. Getty’s senior director of content partnerships, Elodie Mailliet Storm, said at the time, “Photographers in all corners of the world use the Instagram platform to share unique and authentic stories that otherwise rarely come into focus. Getty Images is guided by our belief in the power of pictures to move the world and we are excited to collaborate with Instagram on this grant to support and amplify new and important voices.”

The winners of the inaugural grant are Ismail Ferdous, a Bangladeshi documentary photographer who photographed the surviving relatives of those killed in the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory; Brazilian Adriana Zehbrauskas for her work covering climate change and the everyday lives of Latin Americans; and Dmitry Markov who is spotlighting the plight of orphaned children in Russia and looking to help children “in a humane way.”

These 3 Instagrammers Just Got $10K Each From Getty Images for Their Incredible Work

Getty Images just handed out its inaugural Getty Images Instagram Grants, awarding three photographers $10,000 each for their incredible work documenting stories from underrepresented communities around the world using Instagram.

The recipients are:

Ismail Ferdous - @afterranaplaza

A Bangladeshi documentary photographer using Instagram to cover social humanitarian issues, Ferdous receives a grant for his project titled After Rana Plaza, which centers around the surviving relatives of those killed in the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory.

THESE THREE INSTAGRAM PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE SO GOOD THEY GOT $10,000 GRANTS

After more than 1,200 entries from 109 countries, three Instagram photographers have received $10,000 each to continue “documenting stories from underrepresented communities around the world using Instagram.”

The grant comes from Getty, who launched the Getty Images Instagram Grant program back in May.

“Our three recipients could not better exemplify the original aim of this grant: to document and share stories of underrepresented communities that otherwise rarely come into focus. We are honored to award these grants and hope they will encourage talent to continue to tell important stories through new platforms,” says Elodie Mailliet Storm, Getty Images’ Senior Director of Content Partnerships.

The three winners will receive mentorship from a Getty photographer alongside their $10,000.

Without further ado, here’s who’s impressing with their Instagram photography.

Ismail Ferdous, a Bangladeshi photographer:

Instagrammers Win $10K for Shooting Life in Underrepresented Communities

Stock photography agency Getty Images, alongside Instagram, announces the winners of their first-ever Getty Images Instagram Grant: Ismail Ferdous, Adriana Zehbrauskas, and Dmitry Markov. The grant program was announced in May as a way to highlight photographers who use Instagram to document the lives of people who live in underrepresented communities around the world.

Recipient Ismail Ferdous is a Bangladeshi documentary photographer who uses Instagram to cover humanitarian issues, and won the award for his project, After Rana Plaza. It is a body of work that captures the surviving relatives of those killed in the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory.