A Vietnamese photographer has won first prize in the Contemporary Issues Stories category of the World Press Photo Contest 2012, with the series "The Pink Choice, Vietnam".

27-year-old Maika Elan, whose real name is Nguyen Thanh Hai, has become the country’s first photographer to win an award at the World Press Photo Foundation.

The World Press Photo Foundation’s contest 2012 attracted 103,481 photos from 5,666 artists from 124 countries.

Maika presented 12 photos at the contests. They were selected among 45 photos featuring the lives of homosexual couples in Vietnam. Maika took the photos between July, 2011 and March, 2012. Many of the photos were previously displayed in Hanoi late last year.

Maika said that she wanted her photos to reflect, not the shocking stigmas placed on homosexuality, but the ways that such couples can take care of each other in loving and intimate ways.

“Love is always beautiful, and if we can recognise the love that exists between these couples we will be better able to accept them," she said.

Some photos of "The Pink Choice, Vietnam" 

Swedish photographer Paul Hansen won the World Press Photo of the Year 2012 award for newspaper Dagens Nyheter with a picture of two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli missile strike being carried to their funeral.

The picture shows a group of men marching the dead bodies through a narrow street in Gaza City. The victims, a brother and sister, are wrapped in white cloth with only their faces showing. 

 World Press Photo jury president Santiago Lyon (L) and Managing Director of World Press Photo Michael Munneke look at the contest's winning photo during the annoucement of it in Amsterdam on February 15, 2013. Photo by AFP.

The awards ceremony will be held in April in Amsterdam.