A Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa October 12, 2018

Ibraheem Abu Mustafa has crouched down low to create a powerful combination of flames, black smoke and figures in his picture from Gaza. It’s worth looking deeper into the image beyond its immediate impact. At first you notice the two protesters holding their catapults at full tension, aimed at different targets. Beyond them, and to the far distance, dozens of others figures start to emerge from the smoke; some running, some pointing and others just watching, but all risking their lives to protest. Read the latest details here.

Palestinians hurl stones at Israeli troops during a protest calling for lifting the Israeli blockade on Gaza demanding the right to their homeland, at the Israel-Gaza border fence in the southern Gaza strip October 12, 2018.    REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

There are ways to photograph a building and there are great ways to photograph a building and it’s not often I get excited about a picture with no people in it, but Muhammad Hamed’s picture of the Monastery in Petra is just breath-taking. Like a scene from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the vision created by the light is spectacular and if this picture doesn’t want to make you visit Petra, nothing will. By way of explanation the September date was when this picture was shot, but it was moved on the wire this week.   

A general view of the Monastery at night in the ancient city of Petra, south of Amman, Jordan September 27, 2018.   REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

There’s no mistaking the sadness in Ronen Zvulen’s powerful detail picture that has been carefully cropped by picture editor Nir Elias as a hand tenderly reaches out to touch the Star of David, which forms part of the shroud covering the body of Kim Yehezkel. There is no respite from the cold tones of the black cloth and the stonework, even the bare and tattooed arm looks cold to the touch.

A woman touches the cover for the body of Kim Yehezkel during her funeral at the cemetery in Rosh Ha’ain near Tel Aviv, Israel October 7, 2018.   REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

It takes more than a little while to work out what is going on in Zohra Bensemra’s picture. As you flick from white highlights to black shadows eventually your eye catches hold of the small white piece of paper suspended in the black. Then you spot the woman on the left sitting behind a lamp with her eyes sharply focused on the paper. You then get the sense of it as a ballot paper. The picture snaps into meaning – what a tough task, counting votes in a dark room, lit only with small lamps

Election workers take part in vote counting during the presidential election in Yaounde, Cameroon October 7, 2018.   REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra 

A brave decision by Amr Abdallah Dalsh to use a very wide lens to shoot Melania Trump arriving at the Great Pyramids has paid off. The stark empty landscape is populated with security as far as the eye can see. The slight V of the clouds dipping down to point to the U.S. first lady as she strides through this open space. But what I would give for another inch beneath the security guard’s foot on the right-hand side, the foot is just cut off a tiny bit, a pet hate of mine. 

U.S first lady Melania Trump walks with Egypt’s Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany as security personnel stand guard during her visit to the Great Pyramids in Cairo, Egypt, October 6, 2018.   REUTERS/Amt Abdallah Dalsh 

Carefully framed by silhouetted figures in the foreground we are dawn deeper and deeper into Naif Rahma’s picture by the rhythm of the school children queuing at the start of the new term. I am greatly saddened by this picture as I can’t get the notion out of my head that the silhouettes in the foreground represent the children who were killed in the air strike. This picture haunts me. Read on here 

Students perform morning exercises and drill at their school which lost pupils in an August 2018 Saudi-led air strike on a school bus in Saada province, Yemen October 6, 2018.   REUTERS/Naif Rahma

When I first saw Mohamed Abd El Ghany’s picture I am sure I heard an audible ‘click’ of the player’s neck as he stretches! The warm tones of the colours, the deep shadows of the blacks and the dash of red all strongly evoke the high temperatures this athlete is competing in. His closed eyes and this sense of warmth combine to give me a sense that this refugee has relaxed, he feels he is through the worst of his difficult life; let’s hope so. It’s a story of hope, so read on here.  It’s a story of hope that took a while to shoot so read on here. 

 A Sudanese refugee stretches prior to a basketball game in Cairo, Egypt September 24, 2018.  REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Two pictures by Ammar Awad, which were shot for the same story, are poles apart in terms of mood, and yet I can’t help but link them as they are very similar in shape and design. Both have a strong sense of a right to left sweep of movement, both have three main female figures and the dashes of colour that catch your eye are the pinks and pale purples. I fear that seen together the pictures may convey a sense of youthful hopes that are later dashed. You decide, read on here

Palestinian school children take part in a lesson at a school run by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and works Agency) in the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem October 10, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Palestinian women walk on a street in the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem October 10, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

A Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa October 5, 2018

Eat your heart our New Orleans! This is Malawi and we’re going to party while we wait for Melania Trump. So says this wonderfully affectionate picture by Carlo Allegri, who is travelling in the region with FLOTUS. Take the time to look at their faces, the first thing you’ll see is that gap in the teeth. Then enjoy the style, suits, shoes, canes and hats, feel the warmth and hear that rhythm. This picture makes me feel good, and I hope it does you too. See more pictures of Melania in Africa here.

Malawians hold flags and dance as the U.S first lady arrives in Lilongwe, Malawi, October 4, 2018.    REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Taking pictures of food to make it look appetising is never easy. Taking pictures of food being prepared by displaced people cooking over a fire is harder still. Zohra Bensemra’s picture is a complex, detailed image that evokes different emotions at the same time and I am not sure why. The grey goo being pounded in the wooden bowl does not look so tasty but I feel a great sense of anticipation that what is going to be cooked is going to taste nice. What gives me this feeling I am not sure. Is it the warm tones of the earth and woman’s legs countered by the cold, metallic but much treasured pots? Or is it the child’s green dish waiting to be filled? Or maybe just the calm generated by the soft light and the sense that there is now time to cook after finding a safe place after fleeing from violence? Read on here

Honre Waba, 40, who has fled the northwestern village of Njinikom because of violence cooks in the courtyard of the house where she is staying in Yaounde, Cameroon, October 3, 2018.   REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

I’ve looked at many images of demonstrations but Mohammed Salem’s picture took me a little by surprise. I didn’t at first understand why these Jihadists were completely wrapped in white cloth, their arms trapped. We’d had other images from the same military show of force, masked men armed to the teeth, missile-shaped metal constructions on back of trucks, and alert eyes peering from black masks that all made obvious sense to me. I now understand that these worn white cloths are death shrouds, the message being ‘we are prepared to die’. 

Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants participate in a military show in Gaza City October 4, 2018.   Mohammed Salem

It takes a little while to make sense of Faisal Al-Nasser’s picture. It’s the use of only a tiny fragment of this almost totally abstract picture, the simple line of eyes, that make this picture stand out. Once you focus on the eyes the intensity of their look is quite unmistakable. Maybe also I like this because the reds, purples and blacks put me in mind of the shifting edges and colours of a Rothko painting. 

Saudi job seekers talk to a company representative at Glowork Woman’s Career Fair in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia October 2, 2018.   REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser

One thing is for sure, everyone who looks at Khaled Abdullah’s picture will hear the piercing scream of the baby as the needle, that is just about dead centre in the picture, is pushed into the tiny arm. A visual spiral of almost solid blocks of blue, black and orange colours bear down, as do three enormous hands, holding the child’s arm all forcing you to look at that needle and face screwed up in pain. The only respite from the agony of the pain of cholera and of the needle is the delicate touch of mum’s thumb trying to soothe away the pain. 

A boy cries as he is being treated at a cholera treatment centre at the al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen October 3, 2018.   REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

A dash of colour of a red umbrella with child-like teddy bears printed on it breaks up the greys, greens, browns and rust of the war scorched landscape of Zohra’s Bensemra’s picture. I feel nervous as my eye moves around this picture; I dare not look too long at the bright red as I feel danger lurks nearby and I should be alert, not distracted so I continue to look around. It’s only then I notice the soldier, half hidden in the burned street scene, coming towards me. 

A Cameroonian elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (RIR) member walks past a burnt our car while patrolling in the city of Buea in the Anglophone southwest region, Cameroon, October 4, 2018.   REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Siphiwe Sibeko’s image is a picture of two opposing halves, bottom left you get the timeless quiet of a man asleep, in the cool of blues, only his red cap possibly disturbing the visual slumber. Top right, it appears that the train, warmed by dark reds and browns, although stationary, is rushing forward to the tick of light that is top left. The solid grey of the platform separates these two worlds. When this man wakes up he going to have a stiff neck, but he looks comfortable. If you want to see more on this gruelling sleeper train journey across Zimbabwe, click here I promise you it’s well worth it. 

A train mechanic sleeps at a platform after an overnight train journey from Harare, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe August 6, 2018.    REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

The clever use of three layers by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa makes for an image that you have to look at again and again, each time getting a little more from it. A first you see the face of the man shouting and the flames; then you notice the second pair of arms coming from behind him. You try to work out where the other man is standing but you can’t as it’s confused. Your eyes then drift into the dense black smoke and suddenly, woah! you spot the profile of the man standing right next to you. He’s just coldly staring. 

A Palestinian reacts during a protest calling for the lifting of the Israeli blockade on Gaza demanding the right to return to their homeland, at the Israel-Gaza border fence in the southern Gaza strip October 5, 2018.   REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa