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03.03.2016 — 17:03

Lux Prizes, 23 years of professional photography

Xavier Galí, Jaime Padilla i ​Joan Roig. AFPE

LUX Or 2015, categoria: Reportaje Documental – Mar Sáez, Gabriel se liberó de Isabel

Historical context

The admission of a new generation of young photographers to the Managing Board of the Association of Professional Advertising and Fashion Photographers (AFP/PMC) in the early 1990s led the association to a change of direction and a reconsideration of its role.

This new batch of photographers assumed responsibility for converting the association into a meeting point for professional photographers working in the industry, setting out a common agenda and bringing photographers with common interests together. The need was felt to open the association up and to promote recognition for the profession. A number of changes were made, one of the most visible of which was the establishment of the LUX Prizes.

Until then professional photographers did not have links with their colleagues other than fortuitous meetings in darkrooms and relations between them were distant. This new spirit fostered interaction between them and encouraged a sense of belonging to a professional group.

At first the association resembled a club for a select group of photographers to which access was guaranteed only by professional excellence. The new generation of photographers at the helm of the AFP/PMC, which would become today's Professional Photographers' Association of Spain (AFPE) put aside the association's elitist character and made it a space which welcomed photographers with very varied backgrounds, be they highly experienced or just setting out on their careers. In this way the AFP/PMC acquired a universal dimension and a proactive stance for the improvement of conditions for photographers.

Other disciplines already had long-standing national accolades in recognition of the quality of their work in various fields such as design, theatre, cinema and poetry while professional photographers had no prize to dignify their work. The AFP/PMC therefore promoted the establishment of the LUX Prizes to give recognition to, and disseminate, their work and their creativity, while providing them with an opportunity to promote their works.

With a simple name that is evocative of a luminary unit, something all photographers recognise, the AFP/PMC brought this new openness in the association to fruition.

Birth, growth and evolution

Since 1993 the association has awarded gold, silver and bronze LUX Prizes for the best photographs taken in Spain in various categories. They demonstrate the production and innovation of photographers with creative aspirations and these prizes invite them to develop all their potential.

This opportunity for public recognition brought professional photographers out of anonymity and into the light because, with the exception of fashion publications, it has generally not been the custom to credit photographers for their work.

Almost 25 years after they were established, the LUX Prizes still have the same organisational structure they had at the beginning. This stability is reflected in their foundational document which set out procedures and anticipated that the Prizes would grow and progress. They were therefore conceived as something that would last for a long time in the field of photography.

The LUX Prizes have undergone profound technological and social changes. They have witnessed the change from analogue to digital technologies, a process that entailed the democratisation of photography and the proliferation of photography schools, which in turn required the establishment of a new category to encourage the emerging talents of new photographers.

Changes have been introduced in line with changing circumstances and the categories have been reinterpreted in accordance with photographers' needs. Of the eleven categories there are at the moment, five have been there since the beginning: advertising; portrait; architecture; industry and fashion. Another category, food, was redefined as still life and the five remaining, newly created, categories are documentary report, landscape and nature, personal project, social report and junior. It is the participants themselves who decide if a category is to remain, be modified or be abolished, as happened with the categories for portfolio in 2004 and the nude in 2007.

The establishment of the LUX Prizes helped confirm Barcelona as a reference point in the field of professional photography. Since 1993 Barcelona has hosted the prize-giving ceremony in such iconic locations the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, where the first prize-giving ceremony was held, the Barcelona Design Hub (DHUB), the Barcelona Contemporary Culture Centre (CCCB), the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) and the Barcelona Trade Fair.

In 2000, in line with this spirit of innovation, the Association of Professional Advertising and Fashion Photographers of Catalonia took on the responsibility of leading and solidifying the photography industry throughout the whole of Spain and saw its field of operations increased considerably.

The Prizes as cultural heritage

More and more photographers have participated since the establishment of the Prizes, a continuing trend, and their course has become consolidated as the figures show. More than 3,000 photographers have participated in them and more than 30,000 photographs have been submitted making the LUX Prizes a documented and recognised cultural heritage which, furthermore, has encouraged innovation and the contribution of ideas and concepts and enhanced the communicative power of photographic works.

In 1998 the AFP/PMC published a book to document the LUX Prizes. It contained a collection of the winning photographs from the first five prize-giving events.

In 2004 the association, now under the name of the AFPE, again decided to boost the heritage value of the LUX Prizes by publishing the Llibre LUX, or LUX Book. It is published annually and captures the tastes, trends and tendencies of the moment. The documentation of the selected photographs in this physical medium makes it possible to visually survey the recent past of professional photography in Spain and is a testament to photography's cultural heritage.

With these Prizes the AFPE has elevated photography to a position from which to constantly fend off inconspicuousness through the production of images that need to be preserved as a record of the diversity of styles of the photographers who took them.

Furthermore, the winning photographs form part of the LUX Exhibition which tours Spain. So far there have been 120 such exhibitions.

Especially memorable was the exhibition '20 years of LUX Prizes. A look at professional photography', which was held at the Palau Robert in Barcelona and visited by 80,000 people. The exhibition contained a selection of all the works awarded a gold LUX Prize during their 20 years of existence.

Xavier Galí, Jaime Padilla and ​Joan Roig.

AFPE

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