Goran Tomašević ( sr-cyr, Горан Томашевић; born 1969), is a Serbian photographer. Working for

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

, he has spent more than 20 years travelling around the globe to cover the world's biggest stories. Tomašević's award-winning pictures of wars and revolutions have become some of the most enduring images of the conflicts fought in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. His broad work includes photographic features from South Sudan, Pakistan, Mozambique, DR Congo Central African Republic, Burundi, Nigeria and sports coverage of the Olympics and soccer World Cups.

Career

Tomašević began photographing the war that followed the

breakup of Yugoslavia The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...

from 1991 for daily newspaper

Politika ''Politika'' ( sr-Cyrl, Политика; ''Politics'') is a Serbian daily newspaper, published in Belgrade. Founded in 1904 by Vladislav F. Ribnikar, it is the oldest daily newspaper still in circulation in the Balkans. Publishing and owners ...

, in 1996 he joined world's largest new agency

, covering the simmering political tensions in Kosovo and the anti-Milošević demonstrations in his hometown of Belgrade since mid-1990s. During three-month

NATO bombing of Yugoslavia The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...

in 1999, Tomašević was the only photographer working for foreign press to spend the duration of the conflict in Kosovo. Tomašević moved to

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

in 2002, covering the second Palestinian intifada. During the U.S. led

invasions of Iraq An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...

in 2003, his picture of a U.S. Marine watching the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue became one of the most memorable images of the war. He often returned to Iraq as sectarian violence escalated and regularly photographed America's other war in Afghanistan. His sequence of photographs of U.S. Marine Sergeant Bee narrowly escaping Taliban bullets became an iconic image in U.S. war history. Tomašević moved to

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

in 2006 and was at the heart of Reuters' coverage of the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in T ...

s. In Libya, his image of a fireball that spewed up after an air strike on pro-Gaddafi fighters became an iconic image of the Libyan war, gracing the front pages of more than 100 newspapers around the globe. He stayed in Cairo until 2012. His raw pictures of rebel fighters battling pro-Assad forces among the ruins of Aleppo and Damascus during the Syrian Civil War have won international acclaim, as did his coverage of the bloody siege on a Nairobi shopping mall in Kenya.

Awards

Tomašević's work has been recognized with many prestigious international awards. He has been named "Reuters Photographer of the Year" a record four times (2003, 2005, 2011 and 2013) and won the "Reuters Photograph of the Year" award in 2008. In 2014, he was awarded first prize in the "Spot News Stories" category at the World Press Photo and second and third prize at "News Picture Story" at "POYi". He has won "China International Press Photo of the Year" in 2011 and he has been awarded for a spot news in 2004 and 2012. In 2009, he won the "SOPA Award of Excellence for News Photography". In 2012, Tomašević won the "London Frontline Club Award" and in 2013 the "Days Japan" award. In 2005, he got the National Press Photography Association, Best of Photo journalism in the Portrait and Personality category and third place for news in 2011. In 2014, he was nominated for the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

for Breaking News Photography. The Guardian's photo team chose Goran Tomašević as their agency photographer of the year for 2013. International Business Times UK chose Goran as their agency photographer of the year for 2016. In April 2019, Tomašević and several of his colleagues from Reuters were awarded with the

Breaking News Photography award, for covering the mass migration of Central and South Americans to the United States.

Exhibitions

In 2012, the Czech Photo Gallery in Prague held a six-week exhibition of Tomasevic's war photography, depicting more than two decades of conflict. Further exhibitions were held in Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents Club in 2014 and Perpignan, France during the Visa pour l’Image festival in 2006, 2013 and 2015.

References

External links

Goran Tomasevic's blog on Reuters.com

Interview on NY Times' Lens blog

One hundred of Goran's best photographs

Sequence of Photographs of a US Marine being shot in Afghanistan in 2008
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tomasevic, Goran 1969 births Living people War photographers Reuters Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners Photographers from Belgrade