Maltese photojournalist Darrin Zammit Lupi has won the prestigious Yannis Behrakis International Photojournalism Award for 2021 with a series of moving images chronicling the life of his daughter, who died in January. 

Describing the award for his photo essay as an “impossibly huge honour”, he said it was “deeply moving” and “extremely bitter-sweet”.  

Zammit Lupi’s emotional story in pictures titled ‘The first photo I ever took of my daughter, and the last’, was recently published by Reuters.

It documents the courageous battle fought by his 15-year-old daughter Rebecca, known as Becs, against a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer during the pandemic.  

“It is a story I wish I never needed to tell – a facet of the human experience I wish my family and I never had to endure,” he said in his acceptance speech on Tuesday evening. 

Rebecca reads a card sent to her by local artist Marisa Attard, showing Rebecca as a superhero, in her room at the Rainbow Ward.

Zammit Lupi dedicated the award to Becs, saying it was hers as much as it is for his work. 

He also paid tribute to the “amazing” hospital staff, who did everything to try to save her and allowed him to document their efforts.

The decision to share Becs’ illness and suffering was not easy, Zammit Lupi told the live-streamed presentation ceremony, admitting that when he started photographing what she was going through, there was still hope, and when we published the first story about her last year, he believed things were going to get better”.  

Zammit Lupi was among three finalists. They included Emilio Morenatti, award-winning chief photographer for The Associated Press in Spain and Portugal, who has years of experience in war zones, with his ‘COVID-19: Devastation and death on Spain's elderly’; and France-based Jérémy Lempin with ‘Doctor Peyo and Mr Hassen’. 

Rebecca sits in an armchair while receiving a hydration intravenous drip after a chemotherapy session.

All submissions had a health-related theme – cancer, COVID-19 and care – and represented “contemporary photojournalism and documentation of crucial matters of life in the 21st century”, according to the organisers.

The award was organised and funded by Athens Photo World and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in memory of Greek photojournalist and colleague Yannis Behrakis, who also died after a long battle with cancer in 2019 and who Zammit Lupi admired and paid tribute to during his win.

For the third consecutive year, the winning documentary body of work will be exhibited during Athens Photo World 2022. 

Behrakis’ widow, Elisavet Saridou, chair of the contest’s jury, who presented the award, commented: “The testimony of soul of this year's winner is a punch in the stomach. Darrin Zammit Lupi, we stand by your side.”

On his part, Zammit Lupi expressed gratitude for the jury’s recognition of the importance of this “very personal and focused story about the human condition, as opposed to one which tries to show the big overall epic picture”.

He also dedicated his award to the hundreds of people who reached out to him after Becs’ story was published, sharing their own similar experiences and saying it helped them and gave them a voice.

Darrin Zammit Lupi

The grieving father explained in his speech how “Becs felt immensely empowered by the story, and we quickly agreed I should continue documenting everything.  

“At the time, I thought I would be photographing her long and slow road to recovery, never imagining for a moment that I would be wrapping it all up so soon afterwards, and with such a heart-breaking ending.”

Each photographer could submit up to 24 photographs and Zammit Lupi’s essay starts from the first image of Rebecca, moments after she was born on August 3, 2005, to the last photo, moments after she died, on January 3, 2021.

As a photojournalist, Zammit Lupi felt it was only natural that he would document just about every moment of her life, including when she was two and her face looked lit up from within to the much harder task of documenting her illness and death.

The photos capture Becs in darkness, receiving IV fluids after a chemotherapy session and hugging her teddy bear tight as she slept in her hospital room in the middle of a terrible series of procedures it was hoped could save her. 

They seize the moment Becs died, with her mother, Marisa, weeping over her body.

Bec’s battle was made even worse by a global pandemic that brought paranoia over the possibility of infecting her compromised immune system, anxiety over medical supply chains and, worst of all, separation at a time when togetherness was what was needed most. 

Watch the presentation ceremony here.

Rebecca Zammit Lupi performs some basic dance exercises for the first time in months, outside her room in Rainbow Ward at Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre in Mater Dei Hospital, during the COVID-19 outbreak on May 15, 2020.