(Reuters) – From funeral pyres to remote villages, hospitals and burial crypts to Himalayan hillsides, car parks, temples, Reuters photographers captured India’s coronavirus pandemic.

The 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography was awarded to the Reuters Team for photographs that combine “intimacy, devastation and a heightened senseof place”, according to the jury.

(Open https://reut.rs/3Fvr97t to see the winning entry)

Denmark Siddiqui was India’s Chief Photographer. He died July 20, 21 while covering war in Afghanistan.

A picture of a woman gasping for oxygen is one example. This was due to the limited space at hospitals. Another picture shows a 19 year old in a protective suit, kneeling down before his mother’s corpse after it has been placed on a flame.

Siddiqui took another picture showing an ash-covered Hindu holyman putting on a mask prior to a ritual bath in the Ganges River, proving that everyone is not safe.

Ahmad Masood – Reuters Asia Chief photographer – said, “Danish was in control of this story since the beginning.” His photographs showed the magnitude of the destruction in Delhi and the rural areas. “He made news.” His courage and commitment to journalism is evident in this.

Siddiqui had just one month to go before leaving for Afghanistan. He was talking to Sanna Irshad Mattoo (a Kashmiri photojournalist) about a better way to depict the pandemic. She decided to visit the highest vaccination camp in Pakistan, located on the Himalayan hillsides.

She was unable to find roads that were suitable for cars so she rode her pony up to Lidderwat to capture the shot of the shepherd getting his shot.

Amit Dave, an experienced photojournalist from India, took the following photographs in western India:

Photograph of brick-kiln worker covered in a veil, having her temperature taken during vaccination drives.

Adnan Abidi was a colleague and friend of Siddiqui. He took many of the photos cited by Pulitzer Prize jury. A trip outside Delhi was made to locate a village where an elderly man had taken a cot and placed it under the shade of the midsummer sunlight so that his wife could rest comfortably.

Photograph of an elderly woman pumping oxygen into her father’s chest at the Sikh temple.

Many victims of the pandemic were cremated at the height of its severity without the permission or consent of their families. Abidi snapped one sad image in which volunteers carried a bag of unclaimed ashes to a crematorium.

The Reuters team was required to ensure safety while on the ground, in addition to reporting the disease’s spread across India. The team wore masks, protective sunglasses, and masks while on the field. They also used liberally sanitizers to clean their equipment and themselves.

Abidi explained, “We had to go home to family,”

Abidi said, “This is a tribute (to him) from the entire Reuters team.” Abidi was on one of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams with Siddiqui. He is truly missed by me… “I really miss him…