Day 355 – December 21st – Famine In Niger

Above is a photograph taken by Canadian photographer Finbarr O’Reilly in 2005. It depicts the malnourished fingers of a one year-old child, Alassa Galisou, pressed against the lips of his mother, Fatou Ousseini. They were at an emergency feeding station in Niger.

The photo was taken during the the worst drought in the country for decades, which resulted in millions of people being without food. When heavy rain finally came, it hindered the efforts of aid workers in the region, slowing down the arrival of essential supplies. As a result, various organisations and Western governments were criticised for failing to respond early enough to the imminent disaster.

The image was said to have “beauty, horror and despair” and was declared the World Press Photo of the Year for 2005. It highlights well the crisis that was taking place in Niger at the time, and serves as a reminder of the importance of emergency aid and relief.

Day 343 – December 9th – Boston Fire

This is a tragic photograph that was taken by photojournalist Stanley Forman in 1975. It depicts a young woman, Diana Bryant, and her goddaughter, Tiare Jones, falling after the fire escape that they were standing on gave way. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 and was World Press Photo of the Year in 1975.

The real tragedy of the photo comes from the story behind it. Trying to escape an apartment fire in Boston, the Bryant and Jones stood on the fire escape, waiting for a rescue ladder to reach them. As firefighter Bob O’Neil climbed onto the ladder, the fire escape broke and the woman and child fell to the ground five floors below. Forman took the photograph as part of a sequence, but then had to quickly look away as the scene unfolded and he couldn’t bear to watch. Diana fell to her death, but Tiare survived, her fall cushioned by the woman’s body.

The photograph managed to capture vividly a moment of life and death. More importantly, the result of the photo, as well as others in the series that Stanley Forman took, led to tougher fire safety codes in many states across the U.S.A. It has also played an important role in the promotion of fire safety. It’s just sad that it took something like this to bring about necessary change, but at the very least the influence of the photograph has likely helped to save many other lives.

For further information about the photo, you can read this news article.

Stanley Forman

Day 334 – November 30th – Hector Pieterson

The photograph to the left depicts a 12 year-old boy named Hector Pieterson being carried by a fellow student after being shot. His sister runs alongside. During the Soweto uprising in South Africa in 1976, the police opened fire on protesting students and Hector was one of the first to die. The photograph was taken by South African photographer Sam Nzima on June 16th 1976 and was published around the world.

June 16th went on to stand as a symbol of resistance to the brutality of the apartheid government that was present in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. It is now marked as National Youth Day in South Africa. The photograph itself was effective in raising global awareness of the cruelty of the regime, and is iconic of the oppression that many people suffered from.

Day 330 – November 26th – World Press Photo

World Press Photo is an independent, non-profit organisation based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1955 and is known for holding the world’s largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest. It is designed to offer an overview regarding how press photographers tackle their work worldwide and how the press give portray the news.

Each year, a photograph is declared the the World Press Photo of the Year, although the contest also declares winners in the following sub-categories:

• Spot News
• General News
• People in the News
• Sports Action
• Sports Features
• Contemporary Issues
• Daily Life
• Portraits
• Arts and Entertainment
• Nature

Every year, the prize-winning photographs are assembled into a travelling exhibition that is boasted to be visited to around two million people in 45 countries. They also publish annual yearbooks of all of the prize-winning entries.

Another key aim of the organisation is to support professional press photography worldwide and to ‘stimulate developments in photojournalism and encourage transfer of knowledge‘. To achieve this, they organise various educational projects around the world, such as seminars and workshops. Their mission is stated to be: ‘to encourage high professional standards in photojournalism and to promote a free and unrestricted exchange of information‘.

Photojournalism can be extremely powerful in portraying exactly what it going on around the world and bringing it to the attention of the public. It is one of the best ways of creating an impact to get people to think and them act where it is necessary. Therefore, the World Press Photo Contest, I feel, is important for encouraging the work of press photographers, as well as helping to share some of the greatest photographs taken each year.

To find out more about the organisation, go here. To find out more about the contest, go here. For more information on the photo exhibition, go here. To access the archive containing all of the past winners of the contest, please click here.

Day 328 – November 24th – Pillars of Creation

‘Pillars of Creation‘ is a photograph that was taken by the Hubble Telescope in 1995. The astronomers responsible for the photograph being taken were Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen. The image itself is of columns of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula.

The picture was actualy composed from 32 different images, which were taken by four seperate cameras. What they captured was light emitted by different elements within the cloud of gas; different elements produced different colour. For example, the green is hydrogen and the blue is double-ionized oxygen atoms.

It is truly a beautiful photograph. The magnificence of the nebula is something to behold. It just goes to show how amazing the universe is, and how much there is out there that we have yet to discover. We are surrounded by wonderous thing. Unsurprisingly, ‘Pillars of Creation’ has become one of the most famous and widely recognised photographs of modern times.

Day 309 – November 5th – Migrant Mother

‘Migrant Mother‘ was an era-defining photograph that is said to have given ‘a face to the Great Depression‘. The photo was taken by documentary photographer and photojournalist Dorothea Lange in 1936 in Califronia. The woman in the photo, later identified as Florence Owens Thompson, was 32 years old at the time the photo was taken. She was a mother of seven, whose husband had died of tuberculosis. Her family were stuck at a migratory labour farm and survived by eating birds killed by her children and vegetables from a nearby field.

Lange sent the photo, as well as other in the set, to the San Francisco News – who printed them almost immediately – as well as the Resettlement Administration in Washington. The photo’s impact was staggering: as it began to be reprinted in various newspapers, food and supplies were quickly sent to the farm. It was a moment when much of America was finally coming to terms with just how bad the Depression was, and the level of poverty that it led to.

Thompson’s haunting face was one that triggered public outcry, but remained unidentified for many years. It was not until a 1976 newspaper article that she finally revealed herself. The family later said that they were shameful of their poverty, but the photo had an important effect on many others, who then got the supplies that they desperately needed. They were hard times, but the photograph helped tremendously and remains an iconic image of the Great Depression.

Day 302 – October 29th – Uganda

‘Uganda‘, as it is commonly referred to as, is a photograph taken by British photographer Mike Wells in April 1980. It won the ‘World Press Photo of the Year‘ award in the same year. It demonstrates the effect of the famine in Uganda at the time, with a white missionary holding the hand of a starving African boy.

What is most striking about the image is the contrast of the two hands and, ultimately, the two people. It symbolises the vast difference between developed and developing countries, in terms of wealth and health. It ultimately shows the extent of the starvation in Africa in the period, although it is something that continues even today. To one extent, it is disgusting to think of how there are so many people out there starving to death, many children among them. However, I also find the photo moving because of the emotion attached to it: the synbolism of the two people holding hands, also taking into against the contrast between them, is quite moving.

Wells was ashamed to have taken the photo and was embarrassed to win any award for it, as he believed that it was wrong to win an award for a photo that depicted people starving to death. The publication that actually entered it into the World Press Photo contest did so having not published the photo for five months, showing the controversy around such an image. However, if anything, the publicity meant that the photograph received more recognition and therefore had a greater impact on people and public opinion. The photo led to many organisations, such as the United Nations, sending food packages down to Africa to try and help. It’s just a shame that such a shocking image is required to get people to act.

Day 295 – October 22nd – The Tetons – Snake River

‘The Tetons – Snake River‘ is a photograph taken by Ansel Adams in 1924. I have previously discussed how Adams helped to establish photography as an art form, and also worked as an environmentalist. This photo is an excellent example of both of those things. While other photographers at the time were manipulating their images to make them more ‘artistic’, Ansel Adams went out and took some breathtaking photographs of natural landscapes. The image here is undeniably beautiful and absolutely stunning. It depicts a vast and bold scene, and is also quite striking and powerful.

What makes this photograph special are several things. As I have already stated, it helped photography to become an art form. Also, it contributed to shaping the way Americans looked at and thought out their country’s wilderness. On top of all of that, though, it really makes a statement and is the sort of image that can never be repeated. It shows a land lost in time; a place of almost unbelievable charm and beauty. It is something to be admired.

Day 288 – October 15th – The Pond-Moonlight

‘The Pond-Moonlight‘ is a photograph that was taken by American photographer, painter and museum curator Edward Steichen in 1904. It is an early colour photograph, with Steichen achieving the colour effect by manually applying light-sensitive gum, as this was before autochrome- the first widespread colour technique – was initially marketed. There are currently only three known versions of the photograph in existence, with two being parts of museum collections and the third being sold at auction for US $2.9 million in 2006, making it the most expensive photograph of all time at the time, and even now it is still second in the list.

Steichen was a photographic pioneer, helping establish photography as an art form and experimenting with colour in his work at a time when it was only starting to be introduced. The photo itself is beautiful, yet haunting. In fact, what I find most significant about it is that it doesn’t even look like a photograph in my eyes. It is really rather special, and captures an essence that you just don’t seem to find in modern photography, likely because of the pictorialist movement that inspired it.

Day 273 – September 30th – Afghan Girl

‘Afghan Girl’ is a photograph taken by photojournalist Steve McCurry in 1984, which featured on the cover of National Geographic Magazine in June 1985. It depicts a 12 year-old girl, formally identified in 2002 as Sharbat Gula, at a refugee camp in Pakistan. McCurry, who rarely had the chance to photograph Afghan women, made the most of the opportunity to capture the portrait, which has gone on to become a symbol of the 1980s Afghan conflict and the refugee situation worldwide. Her vivid red scarf and piercing sea-green eyes have made the image the most recognised photograph in the history of National Geographic Magazine.

In recognition of Sharbat Gula, National Geographic set up the ‘Afghan Girls Fund‘ in 2002, a charitable organisation with the aim of educating Afghan girls and young women. In 2008, they broadened their aims to include boys, renaming the charity the ‘Afghan Children’s Fund‘.