The Government of the Azores, through the Regional Secretariat for Education and Culture, promotes the delivery of "Christiano Júnior" Photography Prize on Friday, August 19, the date that marks the World Photography Day.
 
The ceremony will take place at Capitães Generais Palace in Angra do Heroísmo. It will also include the opening of an exhibition featuring all works that took part in the competition.
 
The “Christiano Júnior” Photography Prize was awarded to Sandra Rocha, Pedro Miguel Lopes Vaz de Carvalho and Fernando Gil Pereira Resendes; two honourable mentions were awarded to Marcelo Filipe Tavares Borges and André Mancebo Pimentel.
 
This prize was established by a Resolution of the Council of the Government of September 2015 with the aim to distinguish every two years, in odd years, regional photographers and enhance regional cultural activity in the field of photography.
 
The jury of the first edition of this regional prize consists of Luís Manuel Machado Menezes, member of the Regional Council of Culture, and António Carlos da Silva Araújo and José Manuel Rodrigues, guest photographers. They assessed 113 works in the following categories: "Free-themed General Photography," "Natural Landscape Photography" and "Photographic Portray of People."
 
The exhibition of the works in competition will be open to the public until September 30. The Regional Directorate for Culture will release a digital catalogue that may be consulted on the Azores Culture Portal at www.culturacores.azores.gov.pt.
 
The patron of the Prize, José Christiano de Freitas Henrique Júnior, was an Azorean who distinguished himself in the field of photography in Brazil and Argentina in the second half of the 19th century, a pioneering period in the emergence of this art. 
 
Throughout his career, he mastered the various techniques that were then known and instilled on his work a unique pictorial character that highlights a concern over scenic structure and composition.
 
In addition to being a pioneer in ethnographic and social photography, he was also a precursor of scientific photography.
 
The work of Christiano Júnior demonstrates a strong historical and cultural concern that made him stand out from other photographers at the time. He established an important documentary collection to the knowledge of Brazil and Argentina of his time, which he portrayed in exhibitions and albums. They have become an essential reference for reflection on the social history of Latin America.
 
The highlight of his work led him to important events of that time, including the International Exhibition of Porto in 1865, which marked the opening of the Crystal Palace, and the Universal Exhibition of Paris in 1878.