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World Press Photography… ----like always----
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blood, death, blood and death…
blood, death, blood and death… we are all sick!
how a jury of 13 people can choose the best pictures of 80.000 pictures within 4 days?
by
Stefan Rohner
at
Fri Feb 08 19:46:44 UTC 2008
(ed. Mar 12 2008)
Ibiza,
Spain
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Yes, yes, yes and yes.
Press photographers and photojournalists had been driven there this way.
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Or as Paul Melcher write : dark, blurry, slightly incomprehensible and borderline boring. Does save John Moore’s Pakistan images. But does note that it seems for all to be concentrated on Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Best Astronomical Photo:
American Moon Shot
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i actually laghued at the butt-crack joke. and now I feel embarrassed.
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Camera Owner, what happened to your comment?
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Stefan, blood and death will be the usual in photojournalism because there are blood and death in several of the important news. But what i don´t like is the hegemony of the news that generally interest in the first world countries, yes the things happens in the third world but the cover depends in the interes of the big countries editors. I understand that Irak and Afganistan are important but i am tired of all the space that they give to this. Take an account of all the awards, grants that is dedicated to the same news. i think there are more problems in others obscure zones. I like more the way of Pieter ten Hoopen and the invisible town in russia. Hope nexts years the big photographers goes to others countries, not only the ones that search the editors of Times, newsweek etc. I am sure they can found big news in countries that have no wars or petrol or nuclear weapons.
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I do not post here very often,so maybe I dont know, but can you tell something more newsworthy than war, petrol or nuclear weapons?
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I agree with most of you. Can some one explain the Picture of the Year. Is it iconic, stilling time into a frame which defines the reportage of a whole year. Or are we looking too much into the differentness of a picture rather than its content. All the posts above are about differently shot or differently photoshopped images and stories. Has photojournalism awards about work that will never get published. My editors will question my basic exposure and focus skills even if I have the world press winning photograph?? I cant understand. I am new to this wide world and am not formally trained in some school of thought so please ignore if I sound naive. Cheers!!!
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How is your normal life Victor, what are your problems, your interest, are all pasted to petrol or war or nuclear weapons? Human relationships, lost of human values, pollution in several forms, fobias and mental sickness, investigation and development of the problems that worry the humanity, the unemployment, the migration in some country, the kind of work that some people have to do to live, the fail in development of many countries, the corruption and like sometime said Eugene Richards is good to put something to remember why is good to be alive, the happiness, the friendship. Not all is what have to be corrected, is good to remember what is good. Every one have an answer to this, but i know that in the third world we have several problems that have nothing to do with the triad i mention before.
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“but can you tell something more newsworthy than war, petrol or nuclear weapons?”…
Apparently, according to the US media, this:
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…..some of the buggers are taking this seriously so back off Funky!!! ……this is serious world stuff
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Entirely correct Imants…serious world stuff.
World wide media coverage, and breaking news stuff…
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Only USA entertainment. The same story
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OH, world wide….
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why not have a competition form lightstalkers with voting… maybe some good work will come up ??
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Not George, is the same story, you are looking your navel. If you prefer, only establisment entertainment.
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Ironically Mister “Funky” Brown, that picture of Paris Hilton you posted above was taken by Nick Ut. He is the Pulitzer prize winning photographer who made the iconic image of Phan Thị Kim Phúc, more commonly known as the ‘Napalm Girl’ .
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Yea, how the mighty have fallen….from Pulitzer prize winning photographer to cheap paparazzi chaser.
The United Stated, the land of dreams……
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people, lets just understand that “mr. Brown” (oh, i just remember something i did in the restroom, lol) that he’s a new yorker, which is in so called AMERICA, hahahaha, what else can we get from “the America”… aye?
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Where “Buck”, does it say I’m an American?
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see, thats what you can get. E for “entertainment”, hahahaha.
no offense george but youre a classic, youre the man, you make us entertained here. an exemplar, no match, invincible. hahahahaha.oh, i might get slitz.
i never got entertained this far.lol
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and the exhaustion of a nation
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more like exhaust fumes nation… ;-)
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http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,533957,00.html
“Wir arbeiten acht bis zehn Stunden am Tag und haben dann etwa ein bis zwei Sekunden, um zu entscheiden, ob ein Foto in die nächste Runde kommt”, erklärte der Jury-Vorsitzende Gary Knight
“We work every day from 8-10 hours and have then about 1-2 seconds, to decide if a picture makes it to the next round” explains Gary Knight
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Hmmmm. Yes it seems like blood and death get awarded. Repeatedly. A foundation block of the Fourth Estate is to inform the pubic. It is no wonder that we as news consumers or we as humanity (in general) believe that war or blood and death is the only solution. It is reinforced and awarded.
Death from war is inevitable a likely mirror to a dying profession. My humble opinion.
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bad news makes money. I think thats what it is all about.
Ruediger
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““We work every day from 8-10 hours and have then about 1-2 seconds, to decide if a picture makes it to the next round” explains Gary Knight” Scary. But it explains a lot, it’s easier to remember known and already seen so many times kind of pictures than new, different stuff, it is recognising, more than seeing…
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i was surprised that nothing from Burma made it into WPP… that was huge news… and surely Nachtwey made some great images there.
I think another issue might be what they call a picture story… because it starts to look the same… a lot of portrait series with 8 images that look the same… or that shack “story”… this year was weak… with the exception of a handful of stories and images. perhaps a “story” about parking spaces will win something next year… or 8 shots of my big toe.
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Britney, Paris???
What about Touhig and his leg? Quite possibly the biggest photo event of 2007 and the WPP completely ignored it. Standards are slipping.
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Yeah, standards slipped, and so did I.
Sold the image rights to Getty, which explains their falling share price.
I still have the movie rights though. My suggested titles are ‘Brokeleg Mountain’, Spokey And The Bandit’ or ‘There Will Be Thud’.
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You know, if he wasnt the President of France, there’s no way he’d be in the same picture with her. It’s good to be President. And why be embarrassed, Shahriar? Butt cracks are inherently funny.
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I think that the world is sick, and the contest only shows that. And I see more than only war and death stories there, lot’s of them. But I think that the war and death stories should be there. It’s our world. Also, if you think that the quality of the selection isn’t good why do you give it such importance? best, Miguel
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“Also, if you think that the quality of the selection isn’t good why do you give it such importance?” Because one wonders how the selections are made? What there is, could evtl. be, behind?
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http://www.lightstalkers.org/wpp-agree-to-disagree-
Meet me…
I am the WPP winner for the coming year…
Just became a camera owner and got a pirated CD of photoshop in my bag. And you bet… I am the WPP winner the coming year.
Well… most of the single images at the WPP this year left lot to be desired. Are they strong single images or those that can just be “part” of a story?
The stories looked a little better… but hey… I forgot the use of photoshop here… in a lot of them…
The WPP-Pic of the Year is far from one telling image.
The only one that told something in RECENT years and was strong enough to fit in that category was the winner in 2004 (I think the guy was from Reuters). Reuters the British Agency? where is it missing this year?
Welcome to the WPP awards for commercial photo-shopped photojournalism…
And I do fit in here…
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the first prize of envy to Camera owner!! man, how can you be such a coward saying this incognito? almost everyone here is criticizing but they’re not hiding behind a fake identity.
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learning to photoshop. its called the undo tool… Cntl Z
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eva, if the selection process is being questioned, so is the all contest. what I’m asking is why do you give the contest such importance if you think it’s so badly coordinated? and sorry, what does evtl. mean? my english isn’t that good. best, miguel
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’If it bleeds, it leads."
I liked this year’s selection, although a severe shortage of Lebo-babes made me want to stare a bit less. I don’t give a damn where the snappers came from. I am just concerned with the quality of the image and the story it tells.
Nice to see you are okay, Captain Ahab. I heard a rumour that you were out tangling with the Japanese and had been harpooned.
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I already now give my: congrats, contras and congrats again to Camera Owner.
Miguel, if you depend on the system (the business that is around WPP) I imagine it is difficult to talk openly, in public. will you get the next job, will you sell your pictures after talking openly..?
""I think that the world is sick, and the contest only shows that. And I see more than only war and death stories there, lot’s of them. But I think that the war and death stories should be there. It’s our world. Also, if you think that the quality of the selection isn’t good why do you give it such importance? best, Miguel"
Miguel, in some days this post will disappear in the universe, it is just a feeling, a thought I have, to me most of the selections look the same every year. it does not change my life, it is not important, this is just a post like millions of posts. and yes, you are right, not all pictures are about death and blood, you are also right when you say that these pictures should be there… I just see every year the same stuff, this year some work with an overdone photoshop touch, look at the work of Refner and Zizola.
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Miguel, evtl. means eventually. “Such importance”… I don’t give it any importance, I just wonder about certain things, having read a post, I express my opinion… or should I express my opinion only when I agree with something?
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Stefan, I’m not criticizing only because I don’t feel the need to, not because I’m afraid of “something”. And I always talk openly, believe me.
eva, I think you should express your opinion when you feel you have to, I’m not censoring anybody, I just have a different opinion from the general in this post.
If I criticize camera owner is because he doesn’t have the courage to openly criticize. He does it behind a fake identity.
The way I see it the thing about photoshop has to do about the way you look at photojournalism. I must say that I feel it’s much more honest an approach where you don’t take the image to be the absolute truth, but a particular vision of an individual. In that sense, does it matter if the contrast is high or low? sharp or out of focus? it’s a personal tool, just like any other. best, miguel
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sorry Stefan, only now realized you were talking about camera owner in the first part of your post. I just think it’s lack of
character to do that, I would say it openly and pay the price, just like you and others did. best, miguel
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Miguel,
“And I always talk openly, believe me.”
thats the best, but not all people have enough backbone to stand up for their thoughts or ideas. in the networld of photography you better be polite and send around congrats, writing that you dont like some work you dont make friends, people quickly point their fingers towards you ;). it is all about how fantastic our pictures are.
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The reality, though, is that outside Lightstalkers, PDN, and the very tiny (in global terms) photographic media “community,” no one cares about the WPP or its contest. Most people have never heard of it; nor will they see the website. The contest is the industry patting itself on the back, just the like Pulitzers . . .
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I personally thought there was some very good stuff in this years WPP and also some weaker work. That happens every year.
The one thing that I noticed this year and which Narayan Mahon previously mentioned was there was a lot of portraiture winning in non portrait categories . For instance a set of portraits won in the Sports Feature story category. That I thought was strange and a little disappointing. .
I’m not knocking the portraiture itself but surely there must of been more interesting work in those categories where you would expect something different.
BTW This was Jean-Francois Leroy’s gripe regarding submissions to last years Visa pour L’image
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I red posts about WPPH awards, with many critics. There was such a tension that the result has hypnotized people, not much different in the process of choosing what to shoot for photographers or what to choose for the editors. It seems that everybody agrees that the context of the works has become similar and effete but not acting very different from the common behavior which gives those results.
This is not something new, and something which may be excluded in the process of a global event like this.
WPPH has an important and affective way in diverting the photojournalism trends which is now claimed as towards an in-depth vision. We all experience the change, but what we also experience some kind of decadence of the integrationg of information and the intelligence. That much of info doesn’t make any sense without its context and the intelligence who will comprehend it.
How we live this situation in undeveloped countries is very different which can’t be demoted in to its outcomes. Turkey, maybe, cant be compared with iraq or any other country, yet they all have its unique way of existing, but if we keep on going towards the outcomes which have started to look like each other day by day, we will have a final result with nonsense of reality, and a progressive image production, where the image will only determine itself in production. This may be blur this time, which also makes great sense for the time being of the world for a way of expression. But still, this is not the way of telling the story, this is only living it.
For the Turkey example, there are two subjects as the winners in portrait and people in the news. PKK fighters is photographically weak, as a story telling nothing. My critics for the local nationalists or 2nd republican’s news wouldn’t be less while they are all underestimating the whole story for the sake of their own existence concentrated on some communities interests. Or the portraits of eastern rural girls. The lady who has photographed the story has far more better stories than the current one which were most probably taken at a one school, and concentrated on the interesting girls. What should this tell as a story, or what should we have some ideas about a subject which is very popular these days, I wont try to say.
But maybe no better works have come up, and the last guerillas of the day was fascinating even if nothing was happening at the time of the photos taken or nothing happened in the past was visible to the photographer. Anyway, what we should expect shouldn’t be very different from what we do. I don’t know you all, but I am on the beginning, and try to draw some way. When I only take photos to make people happy, or satisfied, it means that the honor fading from universe has also left my territory.
Europe and usa has been the core of photography and the ones to take it further. But the globalization is not happening in means of communication, but also economically and socially, that we should also spend some devoted energy for understanding each other, rather than putting front the arrogance
Only a person who can internalize all the complication and its strongly connection to each other may reach to a body of work which will carry it self out of its decade. WPPH has some will in means of images, which may seem as a reputation right now, but not a very surprising thing indeed, while we all have some parts in this kind of production. The heart to say new words for this new order is much more harder than repeating the common in some better technique.
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Really liked Cedric Gerbehay’s (Agence Vu) essay on Congo, and Francesco Zizola’s (Noor) on Colombia. I will agree that there were definitely some baffling choices this year, but at the same time, there were a lot of great images as well, and I think the depiction of blood and gore is more than appropriate since that is the kind of world we are living in. Unfortunately, no one was able to get pictures of unicorns and fairies this year, otherwise I’m sure those would have had a fighting chance of winning some major accolades. In the end it’s a contest, it’s subjective. Get over it.
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Really liked Cedric Gerbehay’s (Agence Vu) essay on Congo, and Francesco Zizola’s (Noor) on Colombia. I will agree that there were definitely some baffling choices this year, but at the same time, there were a lot of great images as well, and I think the depiction of blood and gore is more than appropriate since that is the kind of world we are living in. Unfortunately, no one was able to get pictures of unicorns and fairies this year, otherwise I’m sure those would have had a fighting chance of winning some major accolades. In the end it’s a contest, it’s subjective. Get over it.
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All this criticism of the blood and guts is bullshit. People are suffering out there and in a time when we are obsessed with Britney and Paris, I think we need these guys more than ever to remind us that life isn’t all about rehab.
The artists are complaining. I’m not. I say there should be much more of this stuff in the mainstream press, not less. And if not in the mainstream press, then out on the street where people cannot ignore it. Either way, make sure they can’t ignore it.
People complain when the media is full of debauched little girls, and the same ones complain when the WPP is full of the misery of life. How ignorant is that?
It is our duty as journos to uphold the rule of democracy and not make people think that life is a bed of roses. Too many kids are being brought up to think that life is fair, everyone wins and every lives happily ever after. Not according to the WPP pix.
It pains me to see people in that state. So much for the new world order. Same old shit more like. That someone looks at those images and criticises the quality or artistry of the image ahead of humanity needs a major slap in the face for their ignorance.
I would gladly put any of those pics up on the wall of my house, if only to remind me that: I am damn lucky to have what I have, that we are neglecting people who need our help and that there are people out there who are willing to go that extra mile to not let people forget that there are people less fortunate than them. I applaud them for their efforts.
It is not about going to somewhere exotic and dangerous and seeing people living and suffering in squalor and fear and taking their photo. That is not enough, imho. The journo has to do his level best to remind people of what is going on, otherwise they are little more than grief tourists.
It is not about the adventure, it is about being held responsible for humanity. Taking their pix, telling great stories of derring do and being proud of seeing your name in print is an insult to the destitute and the dead. That is just bullshit trustafarian naivety from people who don’t know what being poor is like. You want an adventure? Go climb a mountain in a storm.
Not everyone can go to places like Afghanistan etc, so those than can should tell their subject’s stories, not the photographer’s own.
Less vanity, more responsibility.
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Give the man a machete,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
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To quote Brendan Behan:
“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.”
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When did photojournalism become art? Yes, it is an art to be able to make great images that inspire and take the viewer into what is happening. An image should be able to tell a story without a caption. Please do not take this as a personal attack on any of the winning photographers, there is nothing personal about it!
What happened to well exposed images that are actually in focus! With the cameras we have today there is no excuse for an image that is out of focus, unless it was done on purpose and then we are into that whole news vs. art discussion again! If I filed an image that was blurry, my photo editor would have my nuts in a vice-grip.
I think the judges this year either spent too much time at Amsterdam’s coffee shops or they are spending too much time looking for the images that are so different that they no longer tell a story, perhaps they are convinced that Salvador Dali has been reincarnated as a press photographer and homage must be paid. I thought we were news photographers and our job is to tell the truth no matter what. I also thought that images that were entered into WPP were supposed to be shot for use in a “news” medium. Perhaps I am mistaken? This year’s big winner is a blurry image of a tired soldier; according to jury chairman Gary Knight “This image represents the exhaustion of a man – and the exhaustion of a nation.” What a crock of shit! The bohemian dream is dead and the Moulin Rouge is never coming back! Get over it! We are news photographers, let’s get out there and tell it how it is!
This is not just a dip at the winning image, there are shockers in every category and my favorite is the portrait story of “Rural school girls, Eastern Turkey”. These types of portraits have been done, again and again and again – yet they keep winning awards – A safe bet perhaps?? You can’t tell me that this was taken for use in the Press! I think there are far to many photographers out there shooting to win awards, the recent conflict in Kenya is a good example of this. Photographers from all over the world descended on the place, not because they felt they needed to tell the story of what was happening, but because they were sure that there were WPP winning images there!
At this point I am going to leave it alone, because I may go out of my mind……
Now I bet that you are thinking that I am just jealous or pissed off because I did not win anything. This has nothing to do with it; I just want to see our industry represented by the best possible images. I want to be inspired by the fantastic work that I know is out there!
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I think Emilio Morenatti’s image of the rockets being launched from Gaza City towards Israel is one of the most powerful photographs I have ever seen.
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We all know what WPP it´s about; global 1st world corporate media , the glorious thing of it is that we can see great works, like Francesco´s or cedric´s. Cheers.
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Less vanity, more responsibility! Yeah right Mikethehat. Get off the moral high horse.
It’s vanity that makes photographers enter the WPP in the first place.
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“The heart to say new words for this new order is much more harder than repeating the common in some better technique.” Well said!
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