Haaretz Photographer Wins International Prize for This Incredible Shot

Haaretz’s Tomer Appelbaum has won a Siena International Photo Award for his picture of Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square during one of the first Black Flag protests against the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Appelbaum, who was born in 1978 and has been a Haaretz staff member since 2007, won in a new category, Life Under COVID-19.

His winning drone shot captured the dazzling geometry of social distancing, juxtaposed against the square’s ecological pool and Igael Tumarkin’s Holocaust and Revival memorial – which forms a Star of David when seen from above.

The drone photography competition included categories such as weddings, sports, cities, people and nature. The Siena International Photo Awards were launched in 2014 in Siena, Italy.

Other outstanding photographs in the COVID category included a shot of Warsaw’s deserted Old Town Square, empty highways in Dubai and two grounded airliners at Avalon Airport near Melbourne, Australia.

In the nature category, the top award went to Mexico’s Joseph Cheires, who captured a gray whale passing under a tourist boat. In the animals category, the winner was Russia’s Dmitry Viliunov, who photographed nesting herons.

For sports, the winner was Italy’s Roberto Corinaldesi for his shot of swimmers in the surf.

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The top award in the Urban category went to Poland’s Tomasz Kowalski for his shot from above of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – once the world’s tallest buildings.