Photos: Emilio Morenatti

I am not sure how I missed these when they were first published on the Denver Post site, glad I went wandering around and found such a wonderful set of unusual and atmospheric images, Emilio Morenatti is a photographer I will follow in the future

Emilio Morenatti began his career in Spain covering both national and international events. In 2003, he traveled to Afghanistan as a correspondent to cover the war and the fall of the Taliban for the Associated Press. He was sent to the Middle East to cover the conflict for the AP in 2005. In 2006, while covering the conflict in Gaza City, he was kidnapped by gunmen before being released unharmed a day later. He is currently based in Pakistan and covers Central Asia for the Associated Press. He was named 2008 Newspaper Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year International. Below is a collection of his images from 2008 and so far in 2009.

A Pakistani Kushti wrestler washes himself after a training at the Champion Khalu Behalwan wrestling club in the Old City of Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2008. Kushti, an Indo-Pakistani form of wrestling, is several thousand years old and is a national sport in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Hamas security officers stand guard as thousands of Hamas supporters gather during a rally in Gaza city, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2007. Hamas marked the 20th anniversary of its founding with a huge rally Saturday, sending a message of strength and defiance even as it is struggling to keep Gaza afloat. (AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti)

An Afghan man carries a bundle of balloons as he walks along a street on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 27, 2008.   (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Pakistani men pray at Waseer Khan mosque during Friday prayers in Lahore Pakistan, Friday, March 13, 2009. Pakistani officials appealed Friday to the opposition to join talks aimed at resolving the country’s political crisis, even as police stepped up a crackdown on activists trying to reach the capital for a planned anti-government protest. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A Pakistani vendor hangs a poster of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at his shop in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday Feb. 13, 2008. Pakistan’s ruling party expressed confidence Wednesday that it will form a new government after next week’s parliamentary elections, despite surveys pointing to a strong victory by President Pervez Musharraf’s opponents. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Pakistani court scribe Ruhman Khan, uses an old machine to type forms at his lawyer’s office in the Civil Court of Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, March 18, 2009. For two years many lawyers regularly clashed with police, staged hunger strikes and walked off their job to pressure the country’s rulers to reinstate the deposed Supreme Court chief justice fired by Musharraf in 2007. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s announcement that Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would resume his duties as the chief justice on March 22 headed off a political crisis that threatened to destabilize a government facing a teetering economy and rising Islamist violence. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

a Pakistani lawyer runs away from tear gas fired by police officers outside the residence of the country’s deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mahmood Chaudhry during a protest in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti/FILE)

There are about 50 images in this gallery and all are worth your time

Photographer Collection: Eman Mohammed in the Gaza Strip

“Female photojournalists can’t be found in Gaza. It’s a war zone and the nature of news is mostly violence,” says Eman Mohammed, a 25-year-old Palestinian journalist, wife and mother who lives in the Gaza Strip and knows all to well about the struggles women face in the Israeli-occupied territory.

At the age of 19, Mohammed worked multiple jobs to save enough money to buy her own photography equipment while studying journalism at a local university. But when she landed a job as a staff photographer her colleagues were not exactly welcoming. “I was harassed, threatened and abused by my colleagues, now I’m more independent in my work style and don’t mind the staring or the looks. I proved them wrong when I was nine months pregnant covering the second war on Gaza.”

Eman says it was her own mother’s encouragement that pushed her to pursue her dream, “My mom, a pharmacist and single mother in a very conservative community, never worked as a journalist but managed to encourage the photography passion in me, teaching me the importance of capturing special moments and pushing me to go against all odds.”

While Mohammed may have overcome many of the obstacles of being a female photojournalist in Gaza, the region still presents other challenges. “Photographing the bodies of people I worked with a couple of days ago during the war was the hardest, I was shooting all blurry at first. Then you have the kids and their mothers, and that can never be an easy thing to shoot. Nothing about war is pleasant or easy. Honestly I don’t think any photojournalist, male of female, is safe in such a place. You don’t hear a warning siren and your vest with a “PRESS” tag on it won’t protect you, not fully.”

Eman Mohammed currently works as a freelance photographer

and reporter in Gaza. Her work has been published in the Washington Post, Mother Jones, the Guardian, Le Monde, and Geo International.  – Katie Wood, denverpost.com

A Palestinian security officer watching hundred of thousands of Hamas supporters while they are celebrating the 21 anniversary of establishing the Islamic movement of resistance (Hamas) in Gaza city,14th of  Dec.2008  photo by Eman Mohammed

GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP – JULY 09: A general view of Gaza’s beach on a busy Friday’s afternoon. (photo by Eman Mohammed /Getty Images for WHAT’S NEXT)

 eight palestinian children from same family look out while a funeral ( not seen) passes by, as laundry spreads along their window.

Palestinian fishermen collect fish from the nets that they set early in the morning at the Gaza City beach, 26 March 2009. Palestinian fishermen are still denied from going deeper than one mile in the Gaza sea, as the Israeli Navy rarely allows them to leave the shallow waters.

Palestenian girl recites Qura’an verses in a mosque at Gaza City, Gaza Strip, on 24 June 2009. Hamas launched summer camps dedicated to the study of the Qura’an, drawing a broad participation from Gazans photo by Eman Mohammed

SEE MORE of these superb images on the Denver Post Blog Site here

 

Swedish photographer Paul Hansen wins 56th World Press Photo

From the pages of the BJP

World Press Photo of the Year 2012’s winning image by Paul Hansen, Sweden, Dagens Nyheter. Two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her big brother Muhammad, who soon was to be four years old, were killed when their house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike on Monday evening. Their father, Fouad, was also killed. Their mother is in intensive care at Al-Shifa Hospital. In accordance with their religion, the dead are buried quickly. The badly mangled body of Fouad is put on a stretcher and his brothers carry his dead children to the mosque for the burial ceremony. When darkness fell over Gaza on this day, at least 26 new victims were to be buried. That makes the total more than 140 dead so far since the beginning of the bombardment. Approximately half of the dead are women and children. The picture was taken on 20 November 2012 in Gaza City, Palestinian Territories.

“The strength of the pictures lies in the way it contrasts the anger and sorrow of the adults with the innocence of the children. It’s a picture I will not forget,” says Mayu Mohanna, a jury member at this year’s World Press Photo photojournalism contest. In the image, two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her three-year-old brother Muhammad are being taken to a mosque for the burial ceremony, after they were killed when their house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike. “Their father’s body is carried behind on a stretcher [and] their mother was put in intensive care,” says the Amsterdam-based organisation. “The picture was made on 20 November 2012 in Gaza City, Palestinian Territories.”….more by Olivier Laurent here

 The winning image was selected from 103,481 images submitted by 5,666 photographers from 124 countries. Hansen recently won First Place in the Pictures of the Year International competition in the Photographer of the Year – Newspaper category.

Pictures of the Week: June 22, 2012

Pictures of the Week is a Denver Post Plog that gathers the strongest photojournalism from around the world. Here is a taste from that week

Jordanian farmer, Falah al Abbadi, 50, harvests wheat, on the outskirts of Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, June 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

An Indian shouts for water as a shanty town is engulfed in flames in New Delhi, India, Friday, June 22, 2012. A fire swept through a slum in the Indian capital on Friday, destroying hundreds of shanties where residents had collected scrap plastic and rubber for resale. No one was reported injured or killed, fire department chief A.K. Sharma said. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

A Palestinian man kisses the body of Ghaleb Ermilat, 21, killed in an Israeli military strike, during his funeral at the main Mosque in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. Israeli aircraft fired missiles Wednesday at Gaza militants involved in a deadly infiltration from Egypt earlier in the week, killing one and severely wounding the other, the military claimed. It was Israel’s first official linking of the ambush to Gaza militants. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

Indigenous prepare to enter a subway train as they commute to the People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice in Defense of the Commons, a parallel event during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, June 20, 2012.  The Earth summit runs through June 22. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Fire officials evacuate employees after the headquarters of the Maharashtra state government caught fire in Mumbai, India, Thursday, June 21, 2012. Hundreds of employees were evacuated Thursday from a seven-story government building as more than two dozen fire engines battled a major fire that raged for more than three hours in India’s financial and entertainment capital. (AP Photo)

See the rest of the images from this Denver Post article here

Pictures of the Week: March 16, 2012

More excellent photo-journalism from The Denver Post

“Children watch the wax figure of Anne Frank and their hideout reconstruction at Madame Tussauds on March 9, 2012 in Berlin, Germany.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich reaches over a railing to shake supporters’ hands after his scheduled address to reporters Wednesday, March 14, 2012, in Chicago. The 55-year-old Democrat is due to report to a prison in Colorado on Thursday to begin serving a 14-year sentence, making him the second Illinois governor in a row to go to prison for corruption.

A girl lights candles in front of a temporary shopping complex in the earthquake and tsunami-devastated city of Kesennuma, Iwate prefecture, northeastern Japan, Sunday, March 11 2012, to mark the first anniversary of the massive disaster that devastated Japan’s northeast one year ago.”

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Children watch the wax figure of Anne Frank and their hideout reconstruction at Madame Tussauds on March 9, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images) #

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Ultra Orthodox Jews attend the funeral of Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager, leader of the hassidic sect Vizhnitz in Israel, in Bnei Brak , Ultra Orthodox Jewish town near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, March 14, 2012. Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager was 95.(AP Photo/Oded Balilty) #

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A Kalahari Bush woman dances in her traditional hut on February 18, 2012 in Molapo, in the centre of the Kalahari Game Reserve. After winning a long court battle with Botswana’s government, new water wells mean the Bushmen of the Kalahari can now return to their ancestral lands — but with many already adopting the ways of modernity, their legendary desert civilisation may be a thing of the past. AFP PHOTO / STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN #

4 Palestinians inspect a fire at a building on March 14, 2012, after an Israeli air strike on Gaza City. Israel and militants in Gaza began observing an Egyptian-brokered truce on March 13, after four days of violence, which officials on both sides warned could flare up again. AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED ABED #

SEE MORE HERE

Lucy Nicholson – photo-journalist

From The Guardian

“London-born photographer Lucy Nicholson has worked in Northern Ireland, Chile and Mexico and is now based in Los Angeles working as a senior staff photographer for Reuters. In January, Lucy photographed the women and children living at Hope Gardens Family Centre, a homeless shelter run by Union Rescue Mission on the outskirts of Los Angeles”

See the slide show here

Lucy Nicholson is an unusual mix of hard hitting photo journalism from some of the most war ravaged places in the world and a top sports photographer. Her work is continually of the highest order and there is much to be admired, this is a link to her website

Lucy also has a blog which has galleries of recent photo essays, excellent stuff if you are interested in photo journalism, here is a link to the blog