Hugo GlendinningAn installation of Michael Schmidt’s works at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Waiters passed around glasses of champagne in the grand atrium of the Victoria and Albert Museum here on Wednesday night as Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, announced that the German photographer Michael Schmidt had won this year’s Prix Pictet, an award that asks photographers to contribute work centered on an environmental or social theme.

This year’s subject was “consumption,” and the Berlin-based Mr. Schmidt, who was ill and unable to attend the party, won the 100,000 Swiss francs ($112,000) prize, awarded by the Geneva-based bank, the Pictet Group, with his series “Lebensmittel” (food stuff). It consists of 60 photographs, arranged in a large grid, that show close-ups of food (fish heads, apples, mince in plastic) as well as images of slaughterhouses, transport and farms.

He was chosen by an international jury of eight from a shortlist of 11 photographers, including Adam Bartos, Motoyuki Daifu, Rineke Dijkstra, Hong Hao, Mishka Henner, Juan Fernando Herrán, Boris Mikhailov, Abraham Oghobase, Allan Sekula and Laurie Simmons.

In presenting the prize, Mr. Annan said that “‘the shortlisted artists have made powerful images that ought to persuade governments, businesses – and each of us as individual consumers – of the need for a fundamental rethink of the principles on which present-day affluence is founded.”

An exhibition of the finalists’ work will be on display at the V&A through June 14.

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