“The World Press Photo of the Year is stunning for its lack of content or any other journalistic values. The jury’s selection is yet another setback for a profession that is already in deep trouble. If that was the best of the best, they should have made no selection at all, and I’m hoping next year will bring a more professional group of jurors.
“The photo shows the beginning of something, the beginning of a huge story,” jury chair Ayperi Karabuda Ecer said of the photo. Right. Well how about showing pictures of the story itself, and there were plenty of powerful images from the Iranian protests, if that was what they wanted to show.
A fellow photographer said it was like seeing a photo of Paul Revere putting on his shoes before his midnight ride. There are those of us who still want to see the ride, not the”haunting and eerily prescient” prelude.”
So writes world-renowned U.S. photographer, David Hume Kennerly, of the judges’ choice for this year’s prestigious World Press Photo of the Year award, an image made during the Tehran street demonstrations, by Italian freelance photographer, Pietro Masturzo.
Personally speaking, I too was taken aback when this winner was announced. My thoughts fell along the lines of – “Well, these women could simply be yelling to neighbors across the rooftops.” To me they don’t appear to be of the “activist” ilk, be it kinetic or passive. They appear to be fairly basic people who don’t really get involved.
“Context” and “content” is what this top judge’s choice lacks. Without a well-written caption, the image falls short by many a measure. That’s my take, what’s yours?
David Bathgate teaches “Photojournalism – Telling the Story with a Camera,” online and interactively at The Compelling Image.
Tags: camera, Competition, Contest, Demonstrations, Iran, photography, photojournalism, Picure, Pietro Masturzo, World Press Photo
March 20, 2010 at 9:00 pm |
Hello
I went to the 2009 exhibition, here in Montreal last fall. My wife and I came out of this show with mixed feelings, a little depress to be honest. We talk about it after and came to the same conclusion; This year exhibition was way more voyeurism then the precedent years. It had lot of blood and dead bodys but without appropriate context, it turn out to be only sensationalism and not, journalism.