Photojournalism nominee

Mari Pirttiniemi and Martti Juoperi perform another breakneck movement. The dance is deeply intimate, but they are not a couple outside the dance floor. Finnish tango has been called a three minute love affair. Mari Pirttiniemi has taken the train from Seinäjoki the same day and is taking the night train home. She is a state clerk, divorced and sees the dancing as her ”second life”. Like an addictive alternative to the grey normality. Seinäjoki, Finland. July, 13, 2018.


The tango festival in Seinäjoki gathers almost 100,000 people. Most of the visitors live at the camping ground and a majority of them come to dance. The festival crowns a tango king and a tango queen. In the tango competition the contestants sing, and it resembles a classical singing contest.

Lotta Härdelin (b. 1972) has worked as a photojournalist since the age of 17, when she started her career as a photographer on a local newspaper, ”Nerikes Allehanda” in Örebro, Sweden.

She became a staff photographer at Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest morning paper, in 1993. For the last 20 years she has worked in many different positions at Bonnier Mediahouse: Picture Editor, Head of Graphics Department, Chief Photo Editor, News Editor, and Head of the Visual Department and a member of the Editorial leadership.

From 2013 she has been part of Dagens Nyheters visual department and mainly works as a visual story teller in both still pictures and video. Her focus on climate change, freedom of speech, non-discrimination and human rights has taken her on assignments to all parts of the World.