15 February, 2007

...a thousand words, and then some

Every February, the Netherlands-based World Press Photo organisation honours its choices as the most significant press-photography of the last 12 months. It's well worth checking out this year's winners galleries, as well as past archives going back to 1955. Some of the photos are simply breathtakingly beautiful. Others send my mind into serious contemplation on the situation of being a human being. Some so poignantly draw me into a position of empathy with the subject, they nearly have me in tears.

Here are just a few of the 2006 winners which caught my eye:

A settler resists Israeli security forces during the forced evacuation of the Amona outpost.
(Photo by Oded Balilty)


The wedding of a US marine, returned after being wounded in the war in Iraq.
(Photo by Nina Berman)

A psychiatric hospital inmate in central Africa.
(Photo by José Cendón)

An accused burglar in Mexico.
(Photo by Daniel Aguilar)

A Latvian girl collects flowers in preparation for Midsummer celebrations.
(Photo by Espen Rasmussen)

And some from the past:

1995 - A young refugee in a bus fleeing civil war in Chechnya.
(Photo by Lucian Perkins)

1980 - A starving boy and a missionary in Uganda.
(Photo by Mike Wells)

1994 - A Rwandan man tortured by the Hutu militia.
(Photo by James Nachtwey)

2003 - An Iraqi man and his son at a prisoner of war holding camp.
(Photo by Jean-Marc Bouju)

1965 - A South-Vietnamese family crossing a river to escape US bombing.
(Photo by Kyoichi Sawada)

Truly, we live in an astonishing - and sometimes terrible - world.

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8 Comments:

Blogger lili said...

Munkey! You made me cry at work!

AGAIN!!

February 15, 2007 1:40 pm  
Blogger lili said...

there are a few articles about the wounded US Marine here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article1294008.ece

and here

http://www.fisherhouse.org/inTheNews/ComingHome_11_13_PM.shtml

and the full series of photos here

http://www.ninaberman.com/index3.php?pag=prt&dir=marine

george bush should have one on his mantlepiece.

February 16, 2007 11:07 am  
Blogger audrey said...

That photo of the wounded marine is particularly haunting for some reason. The expression on his wife's face is so hard and disappointed and guilty.

great post munks.

February 16, 2007 12:22 pm  
Blogger Jellyfish said...

You're right, Aud, she looks kind of glazed.

It's the Chechan refugee kid that really gets to me. Those buses used to get hijacked all the time. God knows if he made it.

February 16, 2007 12:37 pm  
Blogger Steph said...

They're all so confronting!
The poor marine looks almost apologetic, and the bride looks very resigned and unhappy.

Great post Mr Munkey.

February 17, 2007 11:02 pm  
Blogger Chai said...

Incredible photos.

February 21, 2007 12:10 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I haven't stopped thinking about the Wedding photo for weeks.

Think of the pain Bush has caused these two people. This is almost worse than death, this is continuous mental and emotional damage that he has caused on two of his own.

But then, somehow, I scroll down to the cameltoe construction worker, and the world seems worth being in (for the humour, not for him).

March 02, 2007 9:35 am  
Blogger Ms Smack said...

:( I hope all the pro-war fucktards see those pics.

April 07, 2007 12:03 pm  

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