Luca Pintér

Luca Pintér was selected for the 2023 Shortlist with All she wanted was a photo of the new-born babies and asked that István and Tamás love the twins.

Luca Pintér graduated from the Department of Sociology at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 2011. She started her career as a journalist in her last year of university as an intern at the biggest tabloid in the country (Blikk), and later worked as an editor-reporter for several TV stations (Hír Tv, RTL Magyarország). Since 2018 she has been working for online media (Index.hu, Telex.hu). Other than covering crime stories, she is mostly interested in general interest stories relevant to a broad range of the population. She particularly enjoys working on the ground, on larger-scale stories, and speaking to people who rarely give interviews. She was the first journalist in Hungary to do a live stream on Facebook of a brain surgery from the operating theatre of the Neurosurgery Clinic in Pécs, which contributed to raising awareness of a new treatment for Parkinson’s disease. She also produced a piece on how births are conducted in Hungarian prisons and the fate of babies born there. Most recently, for an entire year, she and her photojournalist colleague followed the life of a rainbow family who were among the last such family in Hungary to be able to adopt, (and they adopted twins) due to a drastic change in the law. This piece was awarded a special prize by the jury of the Hungarian Press Development Journalism Award in 2023.

Orsi Ajpek

Orsi Ajpek was selected for the 2023 Shortlist with All she wanted was a photo of the new-born babies and asked that István and Tamás love the twins.

Orsi Ajpek graduated as a photojournalist from the Hungarian Association of Journalists in 2006 and then graduated in Communication and Media from Milton Friedman University in Budapest. She has worked at several Hungarian printed and online publications as a photojournalist and photo editor, as well as head of the photo department. In 2013, she joined the editorial team of the leading Hungarian news portal (Index.hu) and worked for the paper until the resignation of the entire staff. Along with the departing staff, she was involved in the founding of Telex.hu in 2020, where she heads up the photography department. In her work, she focuses on public and political events, and in long-term projects she works on human stories that highlight the deep-seated problems of Hungarian society. She has photographed a series on a wheelchair-bound Paralympian who became disabled due to a medical error, as well as a series on severely disabled autists, and most recently of a rainbow family who were the last such family to adopt in Hungary, due to a change in the law. She has won the Hungarian Press Photography Award eight times and in 2023, she was awarded a special prize by the jury of the Hungarian Press Development Journalism Award.