…….and six other shots that shook the world

From The Guardian

While stories of people drowning at sea as they flee to Europe has been a staple of news reporting this summer, it is this heartbreaking picture that has shocked the country into action. Charities have seen donations soar, petitions have been signed and marches planned since it was published – while, in the face of mounting pressure, David Cameron has finally agreed to taking more Syrian refugees. But this is not the first time a photograph has changed the course of world events.

much of what follows is difficult to look at

Phan Thi Kim Phúc

If the horrors of war can be distilled into one image, it might be the 1972 picture of nine-year-old Kim Phúc, screaming as she flees the napalm explosion that has burnt the clothes from her body. Nick Ut’s black-and-white photograph swayed US public opinion against the war, and helped to bring it to an end within six months of publication. After taking the shot, Ut threw a raincoat over Phúc and drove her to hospital, saving her life.

Vulture stalking child

Kevin Carter’s 1993 photograph of a starving Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture caused mass uproar. The macabre picture highlighted the despair and severity of the famine, but criticism centred on Carter. He was vilified for not going to the child’s aid – despite the fact that journalists were told not to touch famine victims for fear of spreading disease. Carter won a Pulitzer prize for the image, but killed himself just months later.

Little Rock

Elizabeth Eckford was 15 and painfully shy when she became one of nine black schoolchildren in Arkansas to be enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957 following a ruling that ended the segregation of schools in the US. On the first day of school, Eckford arrived to find the doors barred to her by soldiers of the National Guard, and a mob of classmates and parents screaming at her. The teenagers were eventually accompanied inside the school by the soldiers, but not before they had endured physical attacks and even death threats. This was the image that made sure desegregation went ahead.

Tank Man

No one knows what happened to the solitary man who stood before the tanks of Tiananmen Square, but his image, taken by Jeff Widener, broadcasted the brutal massacre by the Chinese army. Around a million protesters were said to have joined the call for economic and political reform in China in 1989, with student demonstrators occupying Beijing’s famous square. But on 3 June, the military opened fire on those who had gathered, rolling over others with their tanks. The government branded the demonstrators rioters and banned this image. But outside China, it has endured, ensuring that the courage of the unarmed protestors will not be forgotten.

Abu Ghraib

Unlike other world-changing pictures, these are not beautifully composed, arresting photographs taken by professionals, but grainy spur-of-the-moment snaps. Capturing the degrading torture and humiliation of Iraqis by the American soldiers who took the pictures as “trophies”, their publication severely damaged the credibility of US troops. The abuse uncovered after they were published fuelled anti-US anger and undermined Washington’s claims to be bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.

 

Migrant Mother

In 1936, Florence Thompson was 32, a widow and worked as a farm labourer. Her husband had died of tuberculosis, and she was the sole provider for her seven children. When her car broke down, she ended up out of work with other labourers on a pea-picking farm, selling her tyres to buy food. Her children were killing birds to survive, and eating frozen vegetables dug from the nearby field. Photographer Dorothea Lange asked to take her picture to illustrate the plight of the pea-pickers. The picture became a symbol of the human suffering in the Great Depression, and the federal government sent 20,000lb of food to California migrant workers.

Looking at this picture, it’s impossible not to imagine your own child – or any child you love … a paramilitary police officer carries Aylan Kurdi near the Turkish resort of Bodrum on Wednesday 2 September. Photograph: AP

What the Image of Aylan Kurdi Says About the Power of Photography

Photo editors and experts discuss their decision to publish an image that has shocked the world by Olivier Laurent in Time

“The reason we’re talking about this photograph is not because it’s been taken or not because it’s been circulated, but it’s because it’s been published by mainstream media,” says Hugh Pinney, vice president at Getty Images, a distributor of news images. “And the reason we’re talking about it after it’s been published is because it breaks a social taboo that has been in place in the press for decades: a picture of a dead child is one of the golden rules of what you never published.”

The last time a photograph of a dead child was widely published was in July of 2014 when New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks captured the mangled bodies of four Palestinian youths killed in an Israeli airstrike on a beach in Gaza. What is unique about this case, however, is that many news outlets’ decisions to publish the images followed a public outcry on social media. “We got to this point because individuals have had the balls to publish the pictures themselves on social media,” says Pinney. “I think that gave the mainstream media the courage and the conviction to publish this picture.” READ MORE HERE

Make a donation

Make a financial donation to a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that is doing related humanitarian work overseas. These could include:

● Save the Children: distributing essential items such as nappies, hygiene kits and food

● Red Cross Europe: providing emergency health services at central train stations

● Migrant Offshore Aid Station: dedicated to preventing migrant deaths at sea

● International Rescue Committee:  improving living conditions by setting up camps

● The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR): providing water, mosquito nets, tents, healthcare

● Refugee Action: advice about claiming asylum, the asylum process, asylum support

● World Vision: providing food, water, shelter, education and psychosocial care

● Médecins Sans Frontières: humanitarian agency which has three rescue ships in the Mediterranean

● Aylan Kurdi Fund: named in honour of the drowned child and set up within 24 hours of the horrific pictures circulating around the world. All proceeds are going to charity Hand In Hand For Syria

 

PHOTOGRAPHS WON’T CHANGE THE WORLD?

This week we have seen that photography is a vital tool in changing peoples’ awareness and attitudes. Still images hold our attention in the way that video does not. The crisis brought about by Europe’s failure to do the humane thing, let me rephrase that, our governments’ failures to do the right and humane thing has not been resolved by a picture, but ordinary people have been changed and have spoken out and now the governments of Europe are paying attention. A sage man, Bruce Elder, commented “There is a dark ugliness in the soul of our politicians but, hopefully, there is a certain goodness and decency in the average citizens which will triumph over political cynicism. ”

This article on disphotic by Lewis Bush carries this idea that a photograph cannot change the world but that people can:

The power of images to change the world is often claimed, less often proven. Great achievements have been piled around the totem of photography, from the early pangs of environmental awareness to the final course and conclusions of armed conflicts. And yet photographs are just bits of paper, or today more likely abstract lines of code. These things can’t change the world, but they can change people, and people can change the world.

Photographs are not, as we once believed, a sort of window on the world. But in however an incomplete and fragmented a way they do expose us to the idea of other places, people and things. This is not about some false equivalence between seeing and experiencing. This is not to say that seeing a photograph of a drowned child on a beach is the same as standing on that beach over that small body. But it is about knowing that somewhere a child drowned, and that his death is the consequence of other things which might be more within our power to change. Photographs present the idea that things are happening, or exist, or are possible.

You can read the rest of the article here

You may well feel that there is little you can do as an individual in the face of the overwhelming awfulness that is present on the fringes of Europe but that is not true. This article in The Independent might contain something you could do even if it is only clicking your mouse to tell our politicians how you think.

Five practical ways you can help refugees trying to find safety in Europe

 

Palmyre The Venice of the Sands under threat

In 2009 I was lucky enough to visit Syria and join my friend John Wreford who then lived in Damascus. He took me on a tour of the country. One of the highlights was our visit to Palmyre. Now it is under threat as reported on the BBC website

Palmyra is in danger. As Islamic State fighters clash with Syrian government forces around the historic site, it is worth considering what the loss of this wonder, dubbed the “Venice of the Sands”, would mean for the world’s cultural heritage.

Palmyra is the last place anyone would expect to find a forest of stone columns and arches. Travellers in the 17th and 18th centuries were repeatedly astonished by what they saw: a vast field of ruins in the middle of the Syrian desert, roughly half-way between the Mediterranean coast and the valley of the River Euphrates.

For anyone visiting, however, the key reason for the site’s prosperity is immediately apparent: ancient Palmyra sits at the edge of an oasis of date palms and gardens.

It was as a watering place on a trade route from the east that Palmyra’s story begins, and the very name Palmyra refers to the date palms that still dominate the area….read more here

We have seen how ancient sites in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,  and Syria have been destroyed during the wars in those countries, such unbelievable loss, of course overshadowed by the loss of lives.

Here are some images from my time at Palmyre

Palmyre, Syria

Palmyre, Syria

Palmyre, Syria

Palmyre, Syria

Palmyre, Syria

Palmyre, Syria

Palmyre, Syria

Palmyre, Syria

Palmyre, Syria

 

Palmyre, Syria

John Wreford is now based in Istanbul, here are links to his work

http://wreford.photoshelter.com/

Here is a link to the DEC SYRIA CRISIS APPEAL

You can see more of my pictures from Syria here

 

The Taj Mahal: 26 Images from Traditional to Unique

If you have ever had the opportunity to visit The Taj Mahal you will know that everywhere you point a camera there are pictures you want to take, and at the same time every picture you see has already been photographed by someone else. This can be frustrating, trying to find something new from one of the most photographed buildings in the world. But then you shoot anyway because whatever you capture is yours. Interestingly the towers on the corners are built leaning but look straight from a distance, at least that was what I was told by a guide, then again he could have been having a laugh at my ignorance. These pictures are not groundbreaking but are a good selection of what can be achieved from the obvious to the inventive. From those nice people at Light Stalking What these pictures prove is that a photographer requires patience and planning. Planning to be at the location when the light is just perfect and patience to wait.

Travel photography always acts as a great push for me, that saying “a photographer needs to see as a child or as a tourist….for the first time” is always easier in another country. Last year I went to Syria and here are some of my pictures, you may be interested, this year I am off to Libya to see Leptis Magna. If you doubt my reasons for Libya have a look at the pictures

Abandoned Amongst The Olive Groves Of Idlib Syria

Our great friend John Wreford is now based in Istanbul having extricated himself from Damascus. As well as being a great photographer he is a writer and here is something from his blog

“The scene is messy and chaotic. Water carriers and foam mattresses are being unloaded, an ambulance screams past on its way to a Turkish hospital with a newborn child. A moment of panic and everyone scuttles for cover as a Syrian warplane is spotted.” John Wreford has visited the Atmeh refugee camp.

Atmeh camp clings to the side of a hill on the edge of the Syrian-Turkish border. Colored plastic bags flap like flags trapped in the rolls of razor wire that separate the two countries. Turkish soldiers watch from a guard post on the hill above. And just to be clear, Atmeh camp is on the Syrian side of the border, part of Idlib province now under the control of the opposition.

As we enter the camp the scene is messy and chaotic. Water carriers and foam mattresses are being unloaded from a couple of small trucks, an ambulance screams past on its way to a Turkish hospital with a newborn child. A moment of panic and everyone scuttles for cover as a Syrian warplane is spotted in the distance, a truck mounted Doshka swivels and scans the sky, the danger passes and people re-emerge, a black plume of smoke rises from across the valley.
As first impressions go, Atmeh does not feel like a place of refuge. More than twenty thousand Syrians are living here, the largest camp for the internally displaced in Syria, the decision to come would not have been taken lightly, driven by fear and desperation and with nowhere else to go.  READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE HERE

Photographer Jonathan Alpeyrie recounts Syrian hostage ordeal

On 29 April, Jonathan Alpeyrie, a French-American photographer, was abducted in Syria. Eighty-one days later, he was sold for $450,000 and returned to Paris. He recounts his ordeal to Le Journal de la Photographie and Paris Match.

Jonathan Alpeyrie was on his third trip to Syria when, on 29 April, he fell into a trap and was abducted. “I got into a 4×4 with a Katiba officer, my fixer and two soldiers. We came to a checkpoint where masked men pulled me out of the car, forced me to kneel and pretended to execute me,” he tells Michel Puech at Le Journal de la Photographie.

 In his account, Alpeyrie discusses his 81 days of captivity, which he spent, at times, handcuffed to a bed “with five or six soldiers and two Islamists. One day, a young soldier, who looked crazy and made me uneasy, wanted to execute me because I had gone to the bathroom without asking for permission. He put his machine gun against my forehead but the others yelled at him and sent him away,” he explains……....READ MORE

Jonathan Alpeyrie © Michel Puech.

 

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2286266/photographer-jonathan-alpeyrie-recounts-syrian-hostage-ordeal#ixzz2bNmQBHkY 
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ABANDONED IN SYRIA: Q&A WITH JOHN WREFORD

So if you follow us regularly you will know that our man in Damascus, John Wreford is now our man in Istanbul. In this article with NATHAN THORNBURGH he tells us something about his life in Damascus before he was able to leave and about where he needs to be now.

….[It started when] I was about to leave for a short trip for Cairo. I have residency in Syria, and to leave you have to get an exit visa. When I went to the immigration office to do it, I discovered my name was on the computer. In Syria, that’s a euphemism for being wanted by the secret police. I spent the next three months trying to leave.

Eventually, I got permission. It’s ridiculous, these lists. They didn’t tell me what it was. One suspects that they were worried I was working as an undercover journalist. They gave me permission to leave, and according to the stamp in my passport, it allows me to go back. But there’s a big risk. You need little excuse these days to lock someone up. The handful of foreigners still left in Damascus are all having trouble……..

R&K: And Istanbul is now full of your Syrian friends?

JW: Yes. It’s actually quite amusing. I lived in the old city of Damascus, and I had a small photo gallery, with a friend, in the touristy area. I knew everyone. As the war went on, a lot of them left, and it was all new faces in my neighborhood. But a lot of the people working in the tourist industry, selling carpets and so on, they’ve all come here to Istanbul. When I arrived here, it was just like walking around old Damascus, saying hi to all the old familiar faces……..

©John Wreford

…..JW: For the last two years I lived in Syria, I’ve not been able to photograph anything, and this of course is frustrating. As a photographer, as a journalist, Syria is something personal. If my situation had been different, I would’ve done it differently. I would’ve come in through the north and photographed the Free Syrian Army.

But I was already in Damascus, and I felt it important to stay, to understand what was going on, to be part of it. The media has often gotten it very wrong, or just not reported things. There’s a lack of attention paid to ordinary Syrian people living their lives.

As a photographer, the most natural thing would be to photograph the most dramatic fighting. But living there, I feel like it’s a small part of the story. It’s important and integral, but it’s not the whole story…..

©John Wreford

R&K: We’ve been reading a lot about the fall of Homs and the government’s new momentum. Are people worried they’ve lost?

JW: This is my issue with the media. It always needs a new headline. At the beginning of war, there was a lot of attention on refugees, and then it just stopped. It was the same at the beginning of the Iraq war: attention at first, but two years later nobody cared. But after two years of being a refugee, the story is considerably worse.

But of course the media needs to move on to something different. With Syria, you have the taking of a town, the back and forth of the opposition and the regime, the changing face of the opposition and so on. For the Syrians, though, it doesn’t really affect them……..

Read all of this interview with John Wreford here

 

Press Photographer of the Year Awards

Phil Coomes on the BBC website has a feature on the Press Photographer of The Year Awards

Press photographers are a talented bunch. Day in, day out they give life to photographs that capture the world around us. From the front lines to the backstreets, from breaking news to sport, they are charged with making a captivating picture from a wide variety of situations, all usually against a tight deadline.

The Press Photographer’s Year competition is run in association with the British Press Photographers’ Association (BPPA). Now in its seventh year, it sets out to “demonstrate that even in an age of rolling television news, internet and satellite communication, the traditional still image burns the keenest, fastest impression on the public conscience and is the most effective way to show the world the world as it really is”. I can agree with that…...MORE

Here are just a few images to whet your appetite

David Levene’s picture of U2’s Bono for the Guardian was awarded first place in the Arts category.

Laura Collett jumping Stonehenge on Natterjack at the Barbury International Horse Trials in Marlborough by Andy Hooper took first place in the Sports Feature category.

 

While covering the conflict in Syria, Rick Findler photographed a group of members of the Free Syrian Army launching concrete blocks into a compound housing President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Aleppo.

 

Andrew McConnell’s pictures from Gaza were awarded first prize in the Photo Essay section.

See the rest of the winners here

 

Related articles

• The Press Photographer’s Year (bbc.co.uk)
• Times photographer Jack Hill wins Press Photography Award for news images (thetimes.co.uk)
• The Press Photographer’s Year (thelizardinlondon.wordpress.com)

Photos: Syrian Refugees

I visited Syria in 2009, I travelled around guided by John Wreford a great friend and photographer. The people were welcoming, warm and generous. I am therefore, deeply saddened by what has happened. These pictures add to my sadness. Found on the excellent Denver Post site

As part of World Refugee Day, Save the Children commissioned photojournalist Moises Saman to document the sleeping conditions of Syrian refugee children. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, 1.6 million Syrian refugees have fled the country. More than half of those refugees are children whose families are forced to cross borders into Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt and seek shelter in minimal and overcrowded structures. Saman visited refugees in Jordan and Lebanon to show where these children sleep.

Faysal, 6, waking up inside his family’s tent a settlement in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. (Moises Saman/Magnum Photos for Save the Children)

Haytham, 7,  and his brother Wassim, 5, inside their tent in a settlement in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. (Moises Saman/Magnum Photos for Save the Children)

Aziz, 8, (right) and his sister Aisha (left), both suffering from cerebral palsy, inside their family’s one-room house in East Amman, an area where a large number of Syrian refugees have settled. (Moises Saman/Magnum Photos for Save the Children)

Khoder, 10, stands behind a mosquito net inside a temporary house in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. (Moises Saman/Magnum Photos for Save the Children)

See the rest of the images here

Frontline Freelance Register created to help freelance war reporters

Frontline Club’s Vaughan Smith has launched the Frontline Freelance Register, a representative body created to help freelance war journalists and photographers…….

Vaughan Smith – Image courtesy of Frontline Club
The Frontline Freelance Register is a new representative body for freelance conflict photographers and journalists, created to “address the current gaps in the media landscape and [for freelancers] to take responsibility for their own safety and security,” says Vaughan Smith of the Frontline Club in London.

 “I think this is all linked to the coverage of the Syrian conflict, which is increasingly being conducted by freelancers,” he tells BJP in a phone interview, hours before news emerged that two journalists, including photographer Edouard Elias, had been abducted on their way to Aleppo in Syria. “The dangers are obviously great. In fact, I think it’s hard to find anything else in the past two decades that has been as dangerous for journalists as Syria has become.”…

For more details about the Frontline Freelance Register, visit frontlinefreelance.org.

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2273649/frontline-freelance-registry-created-to-help-freelance-war-reporters#ixzz2Wf6LDDUv
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