Journalists may use infinite words to tell the same story, but for photojournalists, it takes just one click to do it.
Sawy Culture Wheel’s Word Hall is currently hosting the works of 96 photojournalists in the third annual photo contest organized by the Egyptian Photojournalist Community, crowning the efforts of local bylines that are often forgotten.
The group exhibit is divided into seven sections: News, Picture Package, Tourism, Art, Daily Life, Sports and Environment. The show also includes an honorary section displaying black and white stills of the best of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s funeral and the 1973 war.
Walking through each section is like stepping into a time machine that chronicles some of the key events of 2009: The viewer is reminded of Obama’s visit to Cairo, Egypt’s nation-wide pig cull, the bread crisis, the gas crisis, festivities, celebrities, tourism, poverty, demonstrations, football fans, fires and floods.
In every section, awards were handed down to the top three winners at the opening ceremony on Monday, in addition to an honorary prize aimed at encouraging potential talents.
Pictures under the Daily Life and Environment sections are the most heartfelt.
Frantic measures by the Egyptian government to presumably combat the spread of swine flu last April have raised eyebrows both locally and abroad. For the photojournalists, it was time for work.
Contestants depict the pig as a pet, a source of income and a fatal disease.
The third prize winner shows a three-year-old boy standing in the midst of a pig shed with his arms folded behind his head as if surrendering to the government’s will to take his source of living away. Another entry by Maysa Ezzat, one of only four female exhibitors, shows a mother sitting among heaps of garbage as she consoles her son who is holding onto his little pig pet, crying sorely.
For the Daily Life section, Mohamed Hossam El Din captures a common street sport; a little boy aims a tin cover of a bottle of soda onto a pile of other tin covers on the street. The focus is the tin covers, but the boy’s seemingly professional technique and the legs of a man depicted on the top left-hand corner of the picture takes the shot from the street and to a professional pitch. He was awarded the first prize.
Other entries include fervid Ramadan prayers, primary school children hanging onto a garbage collector’s truck on their way to school and older ones forming a human train as they climb out the classroom window in an attempt to skip class.
Winners in the news section include Amr Abdullah’s depiction of the fire that struck Al Sharabeya and El Sayed El Baz’s portrayal of the gas crisis in Daqahliya.
Stark images from the same section include a veiled black-suited policewoman hustling a university student sporting the face veil during a protest against a court decision banning Al-Azhar students from donning the veil inside classrooms.
In the Picture Package category, which constitutes two different shots of the same subject, the first prize went to Khaled El Feky. El Feky captures the raucous reception of two Egyptian fishermen boats that escaped from Somali pirates after months in captivity.
The first composition shows the proud crew standing at the edge of their boat as it docks in Suez, with the Egyptian fluttering in the background and arms waving. The second depicts the boat from afar, focusing instead on the waving arms of proud family members waiting for their very own heroes.
Parliament sessions were represented in the exhibition, epitomized in a clever composition by Magdy Hanna showing a bored, daydreaming Youssef Boutrous Ghali, controversial Minister of Finance, during a Planning and Budget Committee meeting.
Sports pictures are printed in color in most newspapers, and in this exhibition, they continue to take the spotlight.
The growing trend of interest in national football games have taken cheering to different levels. A winner in this section is Mohamed Abdu’s portrayal of an overjoyed group of youth waving flags and shooting fireworks.
When it comes to news reporting, photos are never on the frontline. And while news photos are gradually gaining ground in Egypt, other categories are often neglected, making this exhibition a welcome exposure to the more artistic side of journalism.
Egypt Press Photo Exhibit Sawy Culture Wheel’s Word Hall. The exhibit closes on Feb. 9. Tel: (02) 2736 8881
