An amateur photographer from Pakistan has won a Sony award with an image that best captured the ‘spirit of football in places where you would least expect it’.
Sarah Ahmad, who only took up photography in 2006, scooped prizes including a Sony Alpha 350 DSLR and tickets to next year’s World Cup in South Africa.
On hearing the news Sarah, from Rawalpindi, said she had to pinch herself several times to see whether she was dreaming. ‘When I realised I was not dreaming I ran around and screamed. I think I scared the neighbours,’ she told organisers.
Sarah’s entry was entitled ‘The Love of the Game: a cook, cleaner, mother? and an attacking midfielder’.
The award forms part of the Sony World Photography Awards.
Photographer Delly Carr, who chairs the awards’ judging panel, said: ‘This photograph is so simple, yet it speaks volumes about the sport. The image exemplifies the fact that football is indeed the ‘world game’, a sport built on passion and fanaticism. It also attempts to express that passion make no discrimination against gender, age, nationality or social class.’
Sarah will pick up her award at a ceremony to be held in Cannes, France next month.
Picture: © Sarah Ahmad, courtesy Sony World Photography Awards 2009
