AFP photographer Pedro Armestre, recently recovered from a goring by a fighting bull, on Thursday won his eighth photography prize so far in 2014, a haul earned for images ranging from thrill-seekers at the Pamplona bull-run to raging wildfires.
An emblematic shot for AFP of spectators leaning over their balconies as daredevils packed the streets in the San Fermin bull-run in Pamplona on July 7 last year earned Armestre three awards: the Nikon Spain Press award in January; the King of Spain international photography prize in March; and the Ortega y Gasset photography prize this month.
“That was a photo I thought about for three years,” Armestre said of the shot, explaining that during that time he found the right balcony and a date that coincided with the popular first run of the festival — a Sunday, and the day of the city’s patron saint.
“It is a photo that will remain in time as an image of the festival.”
Armestre, a 42-year-old Madrid-based freelance photographer, also took first prize in Portugal’s Estacao Imagem awards this month for a series of shots of summer wildfires in Spain for AFP.
Earlier this year, he picked up the science and natural history award in the Picture of the Year International awards for his coverage of climate change in the Arctic as well as the top photography prize for Feafes, a mental health organisation.
Adding to the collection, Armestre this week won the Fundacion Donana 21 y CEPSA prize for an AFP picture of firefighters facing towering flames.
On Thursday, he scooped the inaugural Juan Guerrero photography prize for freedom of expression, awarded by the Avuelapluma cultural organisation in honour of his career.
Armestre returned to work in February after being gored by a 580-kilogramme (1,280-pound) fighting bull on September 17 last year as he covered an annual festival in which the townspeople of Tordesillas, central Spain, chase a bull into a meadow and slaughter the animal.