CAIRO: Jewish settlers in Gaza resisting Israeli police forces. American troops invading a suspected insurgent’s home in Iraq. Hugo Chavez, hand raised high, triumphantly greeting a crowd of supporters. And an apartment complex in Beirut reduced to a pile of rubble by an Israeli air strike.
These are the images that currently greet visitors at El Sawy Culture Wheel’s Word and Earth Hall, where about 50 photographs are on display at the World Press Photo exhibition.
The exhibition, which runs for another week, displays the winning photographs of one of the most prestigious photo competitions in the world, which draws some 78,000 submissions from 4,460 photographers hailing from 124 different countries.
The entries are scrutinized by a 13-person jury in Amsterdam, who select what they consider to be the best photographs for display in the exhibition. The photographs are selected according to 10 different thematic categories and are ranked within those categories from first place to third place.
Following a grand opening in early February in Amsterdam, where the winners are formerly announced, the exhibition hits the road, traveling to 80 different cities in 45 different countries over the course of the year. Currently, in addition to the show at the Culture Wheel, the same photos are on display in London, Lisbon, Osaka, Edinburgh, and Madrid.
Although apparently selected with no consideration for political content or message, many of the photos included in the exhibition depicted scenes with subtle, and sometimes overt, political overtones.
One photo series, for example, showed disturbing images from the decades-long civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the rebel Tamil Tigers, who have been demanding their own autonomous state. The images were at the same time tragic and provocative – with soldiers and civilians from both sides of the conflict in various states of mourning over the deaths of their colleagues and loved ones.
The Middle East also figured prominently in the exhibition, with equally provocative photographs showing violence, conflict, and tragedy in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
But the exhibit’s project manager, AFP senior photographer Cris Bouroncle, said that there was “no political intent to the exhibition or the selected photographs.
“The photos are simply a reflection of the events that have taken place this year, he told Daily News Egypt. “These are the kinds of photos that photojournalists have been taking this year. They were not selected as propaganda machinery.
But even as Bouroncle led a group of visitors on a tour around the gallery, certain photographs provoked emotional reactions from certain members of the tour.
Stopping at a photo of two Palestinian gunmen from Islamic Jihad who are shooting a man in the middle of a public square, Bouroncle observed “we don’t know what circumstances caused this man to be shot.
But this wasn’t enough for one man on the tour, who began berating Bouroncle and arguing with other members of the group over what the picture seemed to suggest. “How do we know what is going on here? We have no idea. This man might have been a murderer. What is this suggesting? What did this photographer intend? he ranted.
For several minutes the tour deteriorated into arguing and vehement discussions, until Bouroncle drew the group’s attention to the next photo on display and the agitated man stalked off.
But not all the photographs in the exhibition had such overt political implications, and some of the best photos were clearly chosen not so much for their intensity but for their subtlety and openness to interpretation.
The winning photograph, shot by American photographer Spencer Platt, showed five young, wealthy Lebanese citizens, driving in their VW Bug through a bombed out neighborhood of Beirut.
“How can you tell these people weren’t affected by the war? Bouroncle asked. “It’s a social statement. They look like tourists – but how do you know that they didn’t experience loss? It’s a moment, that’s all, but it suggests a lot.
Michelle McNally, the chair of the jury that picked the winning photo, also remarked on its ambiguousness. “It’s a complicated picture truthfully reflecting the complex reality of the world we live in. And the complexity is what makes us linger even longer, she wrote in a statement.
The exhibition also included photos of art, culture, and nature – in many ways a pleasant respite from the intensity of the more political news photographs. Indeed shots of capoeira performers seemingly levitating above the street, colonies of penguins perched on sky-blue icebergs, and young footballers juggling balls on their heads demonstrated that the competition was certainly not just about political statements.
The photographs will be on display at the Sawy Culture Wheel until August 29 and can be viewed online at www.worldpressphoto.org.
