User:Fauszttimea/sandbox

Bela Szandelszky
Bela Szandelszky (born December 23, 1972.) is a Hungarian photographer and videojournalist. He covered stories in many different conflict zones including the Kosovo Civil War, several stories in the Middle East, War in Georgia, War in Afghanistan, and the events of the Arab Spring in Libya and in Egypt.

Career

Born to Jozsef Szandelszky and Kinga Pallos on December 23, 1972 in Budapest, Hungary. Szandelszky originally didn’t want to be involved in journalism, but in 1992 he became an intern at the photo department of Hungary’s largest daily ‘Népszabadság’ in Budapest and grew to love the news photography. In 1997, he moved to another political daily ‘Népszava’ as a staff photographer, covering daily political, cultural, and sport events.

Followed his professional carreer in a political weekly‚ ‘Reform‘ as a chief photo editor, leading the photo department. Later he turned his interest towards foreign news and at the very beginning of the growing conflict between the Serbs and Albanians he moved to Kosovo, where he spent a year and a half documenting the civil war and its escalating refugee crisis in Macedonia and in Albania. During this time he started to deepen his interest in the life of refugees.

In the end of 1998, OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) employed him in its Kosovo Verification Mission in Pristina as a staff photographer.

Three years later the photographer felt a moral obligation to follow up on the lives of the people he had photographed in 1998-1999 during the time of war. Szandelszky was accompanied by journalist Klara Trencsenyi, who conducted interviews. The pairs of striking images (during the war and three years after) and on-the-spot interviews were published in the book‚ Kosovo 1000 Days Later, ‘A Forgotten Story‘ published by Budapest Week Publishing, 2002.

Later Szandelszky moved back to Hungary and joint to the same publishing house a photo editor. He was responsible for the visual part of the company’s English language publications.

Szandelszky regularly photographed for The National Geographic Magazine’s Hungarian Edition as a contributor photographer, publishing various feature stories from the disappearance Saxon community of Transylvania to crazy rickshaw race in Southern India.

Since 2002 he works for The Associated Press (AP). As a photojournalist his main task was the overview of the visual needs of AP from Hungary, including covergage of news, sport, cultural events, and feature stories. Beside the daily work in Hungary, he fulfilled various assignments covering news and sport events in many international locations. He has worked in the conflict zones of Lebanon, Afghanistan, Georgia, Libya, and Egypt.

In 2005 he received the prestigious Hungarian Joseph Pulitzer Memorial Award for photography.

Since 2010, Szandelszky works as videojournalist for Associated Press Television News (APTN) covering news, sport, cultural events, and feature stories.

In 2010 he was commissioned by UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) Regional Representation for Central Europe to produce ‚Mirage‘, a documentary film about the life of refugees and asylum-seekers in the Central and Eastern European region.