Balazs Gardi (born 1975) is a Hungarian-American photographer. Gardi photographed the landscape of the

war in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...

over a two decade period. Gardi has travelled to dozens of countries to survey and photograph the consequences of the global water crisis. In 2008, Gardi received two 1st Prizes in the World Press Photo Awards and won the Photojournalism prize in the Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents for his work from Afghanistan.

Photography career

Gardi started working as a photographer for the daily newspaper ''

Népszabadság ''Népszabadság'' (; ) was a major Hungarian newspaper which was formerly the official press organ of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party during the Hungarian People's Republic. Before its closure, ''Népszabadság'' was considered the '' d ...

'' around 2000. In the mid-2000s, he spent two years documenting the Roma (Gypsy) minorities, photographing the often impoverished and discriminated peoples throughout a dozen Eastern European countries. His photographs have appeared publications including ''Harper's Magazine,'' ''National Geographic,'' ''The New York Times,'' ''Wired,'' ''Time'', ''Outside,'' ''The Atlantic,'' ''Newsweek'', and ''The Guardian''. Gardi's series titled "Thirst," depicts human civilization in water stressed areas. The Thirst series is part of ''Facing Water Crisis'', Gardi's project documenting the impact of human population growth on water scarcity. In 2010 and 2011, he documented the First Battalion, Eighth Marines, throughout their deployment in southern Afghanistan's war-torn deserts''.'' In Afghanistan, Gardi also experimented with using an iPhone as his primary camera, publishing a photo essay in

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

titled "The War in Hipstamatic". In 2011, Gardi travelled to rural

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...

Province of South Africa to document the communities who live there. His work there was supported by a

Magnum Foundation Magnum Foundation is a non-profit photographic foundation based in New York City. Its mission is to "expands creativity and diversity in documentary photography." History and mission Magnum Foundation was founded in 2007 during the collapse o ...

Fund grant. The Storm, a body of work Gardi created during the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. presidential election working alongside writer Luke Mogelson for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', was a finalist for the 11th cycle of Prix Pictet Award.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions of Gardi’s work have been held at the European Parliament, Brussels (2005); DokuFoto, Prizren (2007 and 2008); The

New York Photo Festival The New York Photo Festival was founded in January 2007 by Frank Evers and Daniel Power in an effort to establish a U.S. photo festival dedicated to the "future of contemporary photography" and to the exposure of new works. It takes place every ...

(2011); and Roca Gallery, Barcelona (2015). Gardi has also participated in group exhibitions at venues including

Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest The Museum of Fine Arts (, ) is a museum in Heroes' Square, Budapest, Hungary, facing the Palace of Art. It was built by the plans of Albert Schickedanz and Fülöp Herzog in an eclectic- neoclassical style , between 1900 and 1906. The mu ...

(2008); Les Invalides, Paris (2009); Noorderlicht Gallery, Groningen (2008 and 2010);

The Annenberg Space for Photography The Annenberg Space for Photography (2009 - 2020) was an exhibition space in the Century City neighborhood of Los Angeles' Westside. Founded in March 2009, it was dedicated to displaying photographic works, ranging from artistic to journalistic ...

, Los Angeles (2009); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (2012) and Saatchi Gallery, London (2022).

Awards

Gardi has received grants and fellowships from the Alexia Foundation, INK,

Reuters Foundation Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

, World Press Photo Foundation and

Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. (stylized as gettyimages) is a visual media company and supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three mark ...

. He is the recipient of the Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents, in 2008; the Global Vision Award at

Pictures of the Year International Pictures of the Year International (POYi) is a professional development program for visual journalism, visual journalists run on a non-profit basis by the Missouri School of Journalism's Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. POYi began as an a ...

in 2009 and three first prizes at

World Press Photo World Press Photo Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 1955, the organization holds the annual World Press Photo Contest for press photography. Since 2011, World Press Photo has orga ...

References

External links

"Men are Scum": Inside Facebook's War on Hate Speech - Vanity Fair - photographs by Balazs GardiAmong the Insurrectionists - photographs by Balazs Gardi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardi, Balazs Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American photojournalists Environmental photography Hungarian photojournalists The New Yorker people Photography in Afghanistan Photography in South Africa War photographers 21st-century Hungarian photographers