This surreal picture
from Mike Hutchings has caught my eye. No matter how hard you look at it you
have no idea what is going on until you read the story. Why is the dog being
thrown out of the hole? What is the man doing? And why is the hole in the
middle of nowhere – you can see an empty landscape to the far horizon. If this isn’t a ‘click on picture to find out more’ I don’t know what is.
Suidlander movement spokesman Simon Roche shows a cache of supplies near Van der Kloof, South Africa, October 29, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
It’s all in the detail. Take a minute to
look at the position and timing of all the feet and hands in Muhammad Hamad’s
arrival picture. Heels just about to touch red carpet, toes pointing up, each
stride a perfect inverted V shape. All this left-to-right movement is countered
by the figure on the right reaching out left, with all this captured at the
moment when Jordan’s King Abdullah looks up and across to his guest.
Jordan’s king Abdullah welcomes Abu Dhabi’s
Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan at Amman military airport,
Jordan November 20, 2018. REUTERS/Muhammed
Hamed
A picture of a fishermen casting his net
should conjure up thoughts of calm open spaces set in a beautiful seascape. Not
so in Thierry Gouegnon’s picture. Even though the moment of casting is beautifully
captured, the figures’ reflection is unbroken on the water and the boats are
perfectly placed, the image is one of ugliness. A tide of plastic waste reaches
up to engulf the fishermen, the grey skies appear heavy with pollution, squeezing
the men into a sliver of grey water that seems to be covered with a film of
filth and oil.
Men fish in water just off from a shore
line covered in plastic items and other debris in Abidjan, Ivory Coast November
21, 2018. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon
Ammar Awad’s picture is a slow burn, easily
overlooked. It’s so busy, with harsh and unforgiving light, that your eye darts
about looking for a resting place. But I think that is its strength as you
slowly come to realise, through the sea of faces, that it’s a picture of a band
playing. Through the visual whirl and heat you begin to hear the instruments:
clash clash clash of the cymbals, ting, ting, ting of the percussion
instruments on the right, and finally the blare of trumpets. I also have to
mention the saluting face on the right, cropped in half – love it.
Musicians play music during a ceremony to
celebrate Prophet Mohammad’s birth anniversary on the compound known to Muslims
as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem
November 20, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
This is one of those weeks when many of the
images from the region are complex in their shape and design and don’t jump
easily into my page. As an antidote to that I include Amr Abdallah Dalsh’s
picture for its simplicity and strength of graphic shape.
The sun sets on the minarets and the Great
Pyramids of Giza in old Cairo, Egypt November 19, 2018. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
For a moment captured it would be hard to
beat Amr Abdallah Dalsh’s picture of a falcon catching a hare. True it was shot
at an exhibition of falconry, so hardly a moment frozen in the wild. But by being
lucky or good, Amr has for sure got the moment. Claws just about to start
digging, the falcon’s eyes are focused on its running prey. The hare, its ears still
pricked up, is not quite aware that it has been caught. All shot in front of a
clean background. I’d like to think that this is all part of the show and the
hare is returned to its cage to run another day. But I suspect not and it is
just another meal.
A hunting falcon catches a hare during a
celebration by Egyptian clubs and austringers on World Falconry Day at Borg
al-Arab desert in Alexandria, Egypt, November 17, 2018. REUTERS/Amr Abdullah Dalsh
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