3 January,
2014
JIM
URQUHART, United States
“I made
this image on the morning of the last day of Burning Man. I had been out
looking for feature pictures through the morning after the Man had burned. As I
rode my bike, the dust was blowing hard and obscuring artwork that had dotted
the Playa. Instead of riding my bike up close to the artwork pictured, I chose
to stop a distance away and wait until a gust of wind blew the fine powder-like
talc dust across the scene.
By sitting
and waiting for just a moment, I was allowed to make an image that helped
capture the scale of the art while allowing the harsh environment to play a
role.”
LUCAS
JACKSON, United States
“This is a
single image from a collection of images I took during an evening surveying the
damage caused by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma this year. I felt that during
the daytime it was difficult to capture how eerie it can be in the areas that
were almost completely destroyed. One night I realized that by using long
exposures and the eerie lights that bathed the area at night, I was finally
able to capture how it felt to be there. The images by themselves might be
difficult to read but as a collection they were more successful.”
BRIAN
BLANCO, United States
“I keep a
constant ear to the ground for news, and during the 2012 U.S. presidential
election, the vibrations coming from the militias were growing louder and
louder. Upon the eventual re-election of President Barack Obama, those
vibrations had turned into a sound too loud for me to ignore and I knew this
was a story I needed to cover.
After
weeks of contacting militia leaders though back channels and message boards, I
landed a face-to-face meeting with Jim Foster, the leader of the North Florida
Survival Group, who after feeling out my intentions, granted me access to
photograph one of their upcoming training missions in a secluded and secret
area of the North Florida wilderness.
I showed
up on the day of the training mission expecting to find an adversarial group
weary of a journalist with a camera. Instead what I found were families;
friendly people who were open and inviting to me – a stranger there trying to
tell their story. Yes, their anti-government positions were clear but they made
no attempt to proselytize or to interrogate me for my beliefs or opinions. They
allowed me complete access to photograph anything I could see, including their
training of children, some of whom carried AK-47 rifles, as they practiced
enemy contact drills in preparation for a fight with the government that they
appeared to honestly believe was both real and imminent.”
OSMAN
ORSAL, Turkey
“When I
was on the way to cover a peaceful protest, I had no idea that my picture would
become one of the iconic images of a month-long uprising in Turkey. As I
arrived the story was no different from hundreds of demonstrations I have
covered as a photojournalist over many years. A group of enviromental activists
were occupying Taksim’s Gezi Park in order to thwart a reconstruction plan as
part of which dozens of trees were being uprooted. Riot police equipped with
pepper spray launchers and smoke grenades asked them to leave. They resisted. I
photographed as a policeman sprayed a burst of pepper gas at a protester; a
woman standing in front of him in a red dress, carrying a handbag and nothing
else. As the peaceful park protests evolved into full-scale countrywide violent
clashes in which seven people lost their lives, my picture, “the woman in red”
became one of the iconic images of the conflict. From tabloids to magazines,
banners to wall grafitti, t-shirt prints to even a body tattoo, the “woman in
red” became a well-known figure all around the globe.”
KEVIN
LAMARQUE, United States
“I was
sent to Arlington National Cemetery to photograph the headstone of a soldier on
who Reuters was doing a story. While there, I wandered over to Section 60,
where those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. I saw a family kneeling
before a grave, and walked over to photograph them and talk a bit. The parents
rose as I approached, but their daughter just laid down in front of the grave
in almost a fetal position. She stayed like that as I pointed my camera to
capture this very compelling moment. My visit there inspired me to follow up
days later with a picture story on the the mementos that loved ones leave atop
the gravestones of the ones they have loved and now lost. This photo, combined
with the mementos images, is a reminder of just how fresh the wounds of these
conflicts are.”
ERIK DE
CASTRO, Philippines
“It was
past six in the morning on the second day after Typhoon Haiyan struck when I
started to cover Tacloban city on foot. I was on a road and it started to rain.
Among the heavy downpour I saw the ruins of houses knocked down by the typhoon
and the storm surge. I immediately thought of getting a general view shot and
to take shelter from the heavy downpour. I walked towards a building on the
side of the road opposite the ruins. I saw corpses in front of the building as
I entered. When I reached the third floor, I immediately saw the shot. I waited
for a while until I saw some typhoon survivors standing and salvaging
belongings in their former houses.”
DARRIN
ZAMMIT LUPI, Malta
“The
gostra is a tradition stretching back several hundred years and involves locals
dashing up a 65-foot-long wooden pole, covered in 15 liters of lard with four
flags placed at the very end, jutting out over the sea at an angle. Every year,
I try to make it a point to go to photograph the game during the religious
feast in the town of St Julian’s, very close to my home. It always makes good
pictures and is good fun to watch. I usually compose the image and wait for the
contestants to run into the frame.
Daniel
Caruana’s gravity-defying run up the pole must have caught the eye because of
the unique combination of his heavy-set physique and the rather hazardous act
of running up the greasy pole. The 32-year-old oil rig worker looks like he’s
flying along the length of the pole, but in reality, it’s a very brief snippet
in time as he’s slipping and losing his footing before plunging into the sea
below.”
UMIT
BEKTAS, Turkey
“Reyhanli
is a Turkish border town in Hatay province. Syrians use the town to enter
Turkey from the Turkish Cilvegozu border gate, located opposite the Syrian
commercial crossing point Bab al-Hawa which is just a few miles from Reyhanli.
I have been there several times since the start of Syria’s civil war to work on
various stories about Syrian refugees. In the early afternoon of May 11, twin
car bombs ripped into the crowded streets near Reyhanli’s shopping district,
scattering concrete blocks and smashing cars. Some 51 people were killed and
dozens injured. I was in Ankara when the bombings occurred and flew to Hatay
immediately. This picture was taken two days after the bombings.
Search and
rescue teams were still on scene and there were still bodies being found under
collapsed buildings. I decided to take a picture which would capture the size
of the damage. I found a building which was also heavily damaged and deserted
on the opposite side of the street. I climbed the stairs and found a spot on
the roof that would be a good vantage point for pictures. The building in this
picture was nextdoor to another which totally collapsed when one of the cars
exploded in front of it. When the neighboring building collapsed it took the
side walls of this building with it.
Suddenly,
a man appeared in one of the apartments of the damaged building. He stood there
for a minute and disapeared just as quickly as he had come. I don’t know who he
is. But this is why I like news photography. Even if you don’t know all the
details you can still tell an impressive story. We don’t know his name or his
age but we know that he is a victim; victim of war, victim of violence, victim
of terrorism. The apartment may be his or maybe it is one of his friend’s. He
may live in Reyhanli, or he may not. Who knows? He may have lost a loved one
during the blast. Even though we cannot answer these questions we can read a
message by reading the picture in the right way: every day we, the people of
this world, create new victims in different parts of the world just because of
not understanding each other, not being respectful to people different than
us…”
GIANNI
MANIA, Italy
“When I
arrived on the scene, the sea was continuing to give back the migrants’
belongings – bags, shoes, documents, Korans – but it was done with returning
the bodies. After the initial confusion and panic as people confronted this
tragedy, piety took over. All the suburned bodies had been covered up by a
friendly person, in exactly the same place where the sea had given them back to
the shore. One instant was all it took. The scenario in front of me was
heartbreaking but in one frame you could evoke all the drama and the desolation
found in a one-way trip.”
LISI
NIESNER, Germany
“I already
knew that I wanted to cover this story before I moved to Germany last October.
I had read about Werner Freund and his wolf sanctuary in a guidebook about
Germany’s western province of Saarland. I desperately wanted snow for this
story, so I waited for the right time. Finally, in January, I traveled to the
little town of Merzig not far from the French border. In the beginning, I was
not sure what to expect and if my hopes for a good story would be fulfilled.
Initially, I was disappointed that it was not possible to shoot from inside the
enclosure or to put a remote camera into it. When Werner entered the enclosure
my doubts quickly faded. Surprisingly, he laid down and bit into the deer’s
leg. He was the alphamale so he ate as the first ‘wolf’. To me, the moment
shows not only a predator coming slowly closer to the prey but it is much more
an expression of subordination and respect of a wolf towards the human Werner
Freund.”
SHANNON
STAPLETON, United States
“I was in
Williston, North Dakota, doing a story on the oil boom there. It was the heart
of winter and probably around 13 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius)
in the morning when I made this photo. I was leaving early to chase the sunrise
and noticed this sleeper semi-truck parked on the road outside my weekly
rental. The ice was still defrosting on my window and the sun was rising. I
liked the frame because in Williston the shortage of living quarters often
makes the numerous men seeking a piece of the modern day gold rush live and
rest anywhere possible.”
ALEXANDER
DEMIANCHUK, Russia
“After the
adoption of a Russian law prohibiting homosexual “propaganda” to minors, I
wanted to see how people live and work in gay clubs in St. Petersburg. As it
turned out, nothing much had changed since the adoption of the law. People at
gay clubs carried on with their night lives. In town, there were only a few
clubs so I decided to visit one of them. After a phone call to the
administration, I was kindly allowed to pay a visit to the club. I got there
after midnight to find many visitors. The atmosphere at the club was nice,
people were friendly, not shy or afraid of being photographed – that’s what I
remember from my visit. Life goes on.”
WU FANG,
China
“I was
among a group of Chinese photojournalists who were participating in a riding
tour around the lake, part of the annual Dali International Photography
Festival. When I got to the streets of Shuanglang, I saw a local woman carrying
a washing machine on her back. She was walking really quickly. Naturally, I
raised my camera and captured the moment.”
BASSAM
KHABIEH, Syria
“It was
the morning of the chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta. When I arrived at the
makeshift morgue, I saw people looking at the dead bodies. They could not
believe what had happened during the night. They were looking for their
relatives between scores of dead bodies that had arrived in Duma city, from
Zamalka and Ein Tarma, in a desperate attempt to provide treatment to them
before they died.
This man
held an infant baby girl. She did not look dead. She looked as though she had
fallen into a deep sleep. He raised her body and checked if she was really
dead. He then returned her body to its place near her father and brother’s
bodies who were also killed in the chemical attacks on Zamalka and Ain Tarma in
the Damascus countryside.”
DAMIR
SAGOLJ, Pakistan
“A man
wearing traditional white Pakistani clothes disappeared from the window back
into the burning building. A minute later, a different man wearing black
emerged from inside but it looked like someone was holding his lifeless body.
The body was slowly pushed over the edge of the window and then released. Twenty
seconds later the man in white came out again. He sat calmly for a few seconds
in the open window with his back turned outwards and then just fell.
And that
was it; both men were dead in less than a minute. After several long hours of
fighting a raging fire (or were they short hours? Time gets twisted in extreme
situations like this), this part of the story ended in the way I had feared
from the beginning – the worst possible way. I shot pictures of people falling
from the building to their deaths, of others crying on the ground, of desperate
and helpless rescue workers.”
JACKY
NAEGELEN, Chile
“This
photo was made from the top of a sand dune during the desert rides through a
fine clay-limestone powder resulting from erosion of the land. The Paris-Dakar
rally presents various and spectacular landscapes across three South American
countries – Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The combination of interesting light
and rugged terrain, as riders and their vehicles pass through the frame,
provide photographers with an original opportunity to make unusual images.”
FEISAL
OMAR, Somalia
“I was
making daily life pictures when I saw Somali children playing. I went into the
Mogadishu guest house, bought a soda and sat in the hall where children were
playing, swimming and cycling. I sat near them but started sipping my soda so
as not to distract them from their games. They kept on playing as I glanced in
all directions. I spotted children peddling in front of a beautiful background.
I reached for my camera and took the image. This was the first time I had seen
Somali children playing and enjoying themselves like this in more than two
decades.”
DANISH
SIDDIQUI, India
“This rape
shook everyone in Mumbai, especially journalists because the victim was one of
them. I received news of the crime early in the morning. I went to the scene
and found a few policemen hanging out at the abandoned mill where the crime had
been committed.
There was
complete silence inside the mill and it looked like a haunted place. I made
this picture because I wanted to show how scary the place looked, even during
the day. For me the picture speaks for itself that this is not anyone’s regular
hang out.”
MOHSIN
RAZA, Pakistan
“I went to
shoot pictures in the Christian neighborhood of Joseph Colony in Lahore three
days after a Muslim mob had torched the area. It was heart-wrenching to see so
many people crying as they sifted through the ashes of their homes, looking to
see if there was anything they could salvage from the wreckage of their lives.
In one
home, there was an elderly woman called Azra standing in the middle of her
burnt-out kitchen. She found a small cage and cried out in grief. It was her
pet parrot, who had been burned alive after the family fled their home just
before the attack. Azra was very upset to imagine how the bird had suffered and
was talking to the remains of her beloved pet, saying “I wish I could have
saved you,” while I quietly photographed the scene.”
TYRONE
SIU, Hong Kong
“The
gigantic inflatable rubber duck designed by Dutch artish Florentijn Hofman
docked at the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, creating a splash in the city. For
days, tens of thousands of Hong Kongers and tourists lined up and crowded the
waterfront of this “Concrete Jungle” to get a picture of the surreal scene.
The
16.5-meter-high oversized kid’s toy turned the bustling waterfront into nothing
more than a bathtub. Some said the art brought happiness as it reminded them of
the innocence and pressure-free time before adulthood.
When a
photo circulated on the internet which showed the yellow duck slightly limp
(apparently due to an air leak) I thought it could be a special moment to look
at the much-loved ducky. When I arrived on the scene with my camera, the duck
was shrinking very slowly and had lowered its head into the water. The crowds
were dispirited to see their childhood bath toy “dying”. Some joked that it had
unfortunately caught bird flu during its short visit.
I waited
until the duck was only half-floating in the water, and captured the moment
before it reduced into a puddle of yellow plastic.
It was
clear that there were a lot of cultural symbols that could be interpreted from
this giant piece of art. A half-floating duck in the water had triggered deep
feelings among the people of Hong Kong. It brought happy reminders of our
care-free childhood, but it also brought a melancholy that such an innocent
time was so fleeting – like the nature of all beautiful things in world.”
RICARDO
MORAES, Brazil
“Arriving
in Recife for a series of Confederations Cup matches, I spotted from my hotel
window a group of youths playing soccer on the beach, a typical scene in
Brazil. I had very little time before leaving for a Spanish team training
session. I noticed the shadows of buildings along the beachfront and the effect
they had on the improvised soccer field. I waited as long as I could to take
advantage of the shapes created by the shadows projected on the beach. I sent
the picture and raced to the training. That was my first photo of the
Confederations Cup, which would last several weeks, with a lot of soccer and
street riots.”
MOHAMMED
SALEM, Gaza
“I got a
phone call from a friend asking if I wanted to photograph a wedding in Gaza. I
told him I wasn’t interested but when he told me the groom was 15 years old and
the bride was one year younger than him, I rushed to the location immediately.
After
arriving I saw people celebrating in the street not far from the border between
Israel and the northern Gaza Strip. Among them was a young Palestinian boy
being carried on the shoulders of relatives and friends. I couldn’t believe
that the boy was the groom until I asked him and he replied with a smile, “yes
I am”.
After he
finished celebrating at a party held a day before the official wedding, he went
to play with friends in the street where they enjoyed flavored frozen drinks.
The second
day I went back and continued covering the story, the official wedding was to
take place that day. I was surprised when I saw the groom’s mother helping him
put on his wedding suit. I couldn’t avoid thinking that it looked as if she was
dressing him for school. After that he started combing his hair using a broken
piece of a mirror.
I realized
how poor the family was when I noticed that he and his wife share the
three-room house with the rest of the family – another nine people.
I asked
the young groom if I could go with him into the house where the bride was
getting prepared. When we entered the house, which was only nextdoor, I
realized that the family had not yet repaired the damage that was caused from
an Israeli strike in 2009. When young Soboh looked at his bride and saw she was
veiled, his face became frank and serious. At that moment the bride spoke to
her groom and said, “let’s smile and have our photo taken”. One thing she
forgot to do before posing for the photograph was to remove her veil.”
blogs.reuters
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