Finnish photographer Pekka Pääkkö has won first prize in the humorous photograph category in the Swedish photojournalism competition.

   

The picture, first published in the travel section of Helsingin Sanomat on July 23 last year, shows sheep engaging in an apparent fleecy threesome silhouetted against a sunset on the Swedish island of Öland. The picture was included in a series of travel articles written by Helsingin Sanomat Scandinavia correspondent Mari Manninen.

   

Pääkkö caught the animals in the act at the end of a 15-hour work day.

   

Helsingin Sanomat photographers have done rather well in recent photojournalism competitions. Last week news photographer Markus Jokela won the Press Photograph of the Year award here in Finland.

The 47-year-old Pääkkö is the first Finnish photographer to win a prize in the annual Swedish competition. He has worked in Sweden as a freelancer for Helsingin Sanomat for the past 17 years.

   

The jury in the competition could not find Swedish words to explain their choice, so they opted for an English expression: "Fu*king good picture".

The contest involved a total of 3,351 entries from 262 photographers. The winning pictures from 13 different series are on display at the Galleri Kontrast in Stockholm.

The award for best picture of the year went to freelance photographer Stefan Söderström whose image shows Foreign Minister Anna Lindh on a stretcher minutes after her fateful stabbing.

   

The choice was somewhat extraordinary. The tabloid newspaper Expressen, which first published the photo, was denounced at the time for violating the privacy of the victim of a crime. However, the judges in the competition felt that the picture has unique historical value.