John Moore: 2019 World Press Photo of The Year

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - APRIL 11: John Moore wins the first place in the World Press Photo 2019 in Amsterdam, Netherlands on April 11, 2019. (Photo by Paco Nunez/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Getty Images photographer John Moore has been covering events at the US/Mexico border for more than ten years. In spring 2018, selections from this large body of work were published in an award-winning book about the subject, Undocumented. It is a photograph taken a few months after the book’s publication, however, that has become the defining image of the photographer’s ongoing border reportage.

The photograph, seen below, shows the moment when a two-year-old Honduran girl and her mother are taken into custody after illegally crossing the border from Mexico into Texas. It was captured at the height of political and cultural tensions surrounding the Trump Administration policy of family separations and quickly made front page news around the world.

On April 11, 2019, the photograph was announced as the World Press Photo of The Year 2019 at a ceremony in Amsterdam. Photojournalists recognize the prize as the world’s most influential and important honor; John’s image was selected from more than 78,000 submissions.

As the official gallery for Getty Images staff photographers, we are proud to offer collectors and collecting institutions the opportunity to acquire this difficult but important work. Signed, small-run limited edition prints are available in three sizes. Please enquire for further details.

MCALLEN, TX - JUNE 12: A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. The asylum seekers had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents before being sent to a processing center for possible separation.