2015 Sony World Photography Awards - 2nd Place, Current Affairs, Professional Competition
Valery Melnikov is a documentary photographer based in Moscow. He studied journalism in Stavropol, Russia and began his photographic career working for The North Caucasus newspaper. For ten years he was a staff photographer for Kommersant publishing house and since 2009 for international news agency Rossiya Segodnya. Melnikov’s work focuses on documenting the political and social life of societies in conflict and includes coverage of the Chechen war, the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia, the 2006 Lebanese war, the uprising of the Mali Republic and the Syrian civil war. In 2014, he began documenting war in Eastern Ukraine. This work continues in his current ongoing project ‘Black days of Ukraine’ about civilians who became participants of the military confrontation against their will.
Melnikov‘s work has been awarded by World Press Photo, Magnum Photography, Pictures of the Year International, Sony World Photography and LensCulture Visual Storytelling. His work has been exhibited in France, Austria, Italy, the United States, Germany, UK and Russia among other countries.