Erik Refner

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Erik Refner
Born14 January 1971 (1971-01-14) (age 53)
Copenhagen
Alma materDanish School of Media and Journalism
AwardsWorld Press Photo of the Year 2002
Cavling Prize 2009

Erik Refner (born 14 January 1971) is a Danish photographer and former pentathlete, soldier, and model.

He is best known for winning the World Press Photo of the Year award in 2002 as a student. He also won the Cavling Prize in 2009.

Early life[edit]

Refner was born on the 14th January 1971 in Copenhagen and grew up in the north of the city.[1][2] As a teenager he travelled internationally, including living for three months in an Israeli kibbutz.[2]

Adult life[edit]

In the 1990s, Refner was a sergeant in the Royal Danish army after which he spent one year as part of the Danish pentathlon team.[1][3] He then worked as a model for seven years, before switching to photography after one of the photographers he was working with needed an assistant.[1][4]

He won the World Press Photo of the Year in 2002, while studying at the Danish School of Media and Journalism, which he attended from 1998 to 2002.[5] His winning photograph was of the burial of a young Afghan boy in Pakistan, whose family had fled to Jalozai to escape violence in their home country.[5][6]

His early work was focussed on photography in conflict zones and took him to Afghanistan, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine, and Iraq.[5] He worked at the Berlingske newspaper for eleven years, and did commercial photography for Canon, Coca Cola, Maersk and Nike.[5][1] He has been published in Elle, Esquire, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Phaidon, The New York Times, and Marie Claire.[5] He won the Cavling Prize in 2009.[5]

In 2015, he founded the IDIP.Agency to help photographers obtain payment for copyright infringements.[5]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Five Celebrated Sports Photographers to Inspire You Click Better". Demilked. 2016-11-15. Retrieved 2022-05-08.
  2. ^ a b Heidenfeld, Jesse (2012-04-11). "Erik Refner". jesseheidenfeld. Retrieved 2022-05-08.
  3. ^ Kock Roberto, Photobox: Bringing the Great Photographers Into Focus. (2009). United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson. p470
  4. ^ Abbasi, Jibran (2017-05-13). "Bunia Ethnic Violence by Erik Refner". Brecorder. Retrieved 2022-05-08.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g "Erik Refner | World Press Photo". www.worldpressphoto.org. Retrieved 2022-05-08.
  6. ^ "Las fotografías de aquel 11 de septiembre". El País (in Spanish). 2011-09-10. ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2022-05-08.