A Week in Pictures, Middle East and Africa, May 31, 2019

The light in Alaa Al-Marjani’s picture is a little tough: top artificial light creating downward shadows, flat highlights and a colour cast. But this does not distract from an image that intrigues. What is best about this image is the timing, even though the light is poor and the women are covering their heads, you can just about see all the faces, with downcast eyes, and through this you get a powerful sense of devotion. Take the time to look at all their faces.

Iraq Shi’ite Muslim women place copies of the Koran on their heads during the holy month of Ramadan at the Imam Ali Shrine, in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq May 28, 2019.   REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

Each week Reuters photographers are commissioned with a theme of the week. This week is ‘beauty’ next week is ‘tobacco’. They are free to shoot what they want on this theme. Hayam Adel has chosen beauty treatments and used full-on eye contact and a bold crop mixed with warm colours to shoot this striking portrait of a young woman getting her hair braided and her hand hennaed. Cropping off the top of the head and leaving the open space top-right draws you into the eye and then to the carefully braided hair. 

A Sudanese girl with braided hair poses for a picture in Cairo May 29, 2019.   REUTERS/Hayam Adel 

Sometimes a picture works well cropped in two different ways, as is the case with Ronen Zvulun’s picture of Netanyahu. The full vertical image, a classic ‘top of head’ in frame with the hand and fingers leading you through the image to the eyes, works and the quality is good. A strong single-column image, in newspaper terminology. 

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits at the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem May 30, 2019.   REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

But a bold horizontal crop brings Ronen’s picture into the classic, easy to use and easy to consume digital platform format. It also brings your attention to the eyes in deep contemplation. Look carefully where each eye appears to be looking. The hand is creating wrinkles that bring you back into the image and those eyes as you are led from bottom left to top right by the fingers.   

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits at the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem May 30, 2019.   REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Ammar Awad’s picture plays a visual game of hide and seek. Your eye chases around the cool blues and greens and between the highlights and shadows looking for something to focus on. And then suddenly you see Netanyahu’s face, half obscured, peering at you from a protester’s banner. What a clever and creative way to photograph a demonstration, through a passing bus. 

A bus passes next to the residence of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a protest against him in Jerusalem May 30, 2019.   REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Waleed Ali’s picture has immediate impact with its strong graphic composition. A solid black space is bisected by a gold panel occupying just about half the image, eye-catching even when viewed small. You then notice the sea of people moving through a bold L shape from top left to bottom right. It’s then that the single figure, wearing a white shirt, jumps out at you as he stretches to touch the holy Kaaba. And once you have spotted him you just can’t look away as he tries to resist the movement of the tsunami of people to prolong his touch. More pictures on Ramadan here.

Muslims perform Umrah around the holy Kaaba at the Great Mosque during the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, May 26, 2019.  REUTERS/Waleed Ali

Some pictures just lift the heart, and Siphiwe Sibeko’s image does just that. Surrounded by colour, sound and movement is the biggest, warmest smile of the week. Siphiwe’s picture is perfectly timed so the waving flags don’t obscure the face. But the real secret to the success of this image is the eye contact. She’s looking right at you, even from across a crowded stadium. 

Guests sing and dance as they arrive for the inauguration of Cyril Ramaphosa as President, at Loftus Versveld stadium in Pretoria, South Africa, May 25, 2019.   REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Just enjoy the wonderful gentle horizontal zigzag composition of Mohamad Torokman’s picture. People are spaced out against the tooth-like concrete barrier as they make their way under the solid black tones of the canopy, all set against the highlight of the blue sky. Take the time to notice how Mohamed plays with the viewer, the figures right and left are in fact shadows of people – a nice touch.    

Palestinians make their way to attend last Friday prayer of Ramadan in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, at Qalandia checkpoint, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank May 31. 2019.   REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

A very simple picture by Aboud Haman that is quite thought-provoking. At first sight, it’s just a couple, dwarfed by the rubble of a destroyed building, not uncommon in Raqqa. But look deep into the shadows. These people are not walking past it, they are walking through it. A potentially dangerous journey, but in the context of recent history, not as dangerous as it was before. What occurred to me is how things that are not normal in many places seem completely commonplace elsewhere.   

People walk through the rubble of damaged buildings in Raqqa Syria May 29, 2019.   REUTERS/Aboud Hamam

The name Idlib conjures up images of a city gripped with tension and destroyed by conflict. Khalid Ashawi’s picture of bread being made in a bakery is counterintuitive and gives us a certain amount of respite from what is imagined. The whole image is almost completely monochromatic, the colour bleached out and the figure silhouetted by a single light bulb on the wall. A hint of a kiss of pink on the wall and the glow of the oven warm the whole image to the extent that you can almost smell that bread. Read on about Idlib here 

A worker bakes bread inside a bakery before Iftar, or fast breaking, during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in the city of Idlib, Syria May 28, 2019.   REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

I really don’t do cute, but hard to resist is Amir Cohen’s lucky and affectionate image of a fruit-bat suckling. The strength of this image is that it is pin sharp with a shallow depth of field, drawing your focus to the stretched teat, the bony wing and the touch of highlight in the eye of the pup. Soft-focused and in the background, is that a slightly indignant look on the mother’s face? 

An Egyptian fruit-bat pup suckles from its mother at a laboratory in the Steinhardt Museum of natural History in Tel Aviv, Israel May 27, 2019.   REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Week in Pictures, Middle East and Africa, October 8, 2017

Balanced on a pile of cushions, a gunman aims his rifle through a hole in a wall. Half shut your eyes and Erik de Castro’s image looks like a landscape, a watery sun setting to the left of a mountain, the moon just beginning to appear on the right. Open them again and you see the gunman precariously balanced as he prepares to kill. 

A fighter of Syrian Democratic Forces takes up a position inside a house in Raqqa, Syria, October 1, 2017.    REUTERS/Erik de Castro

We often read reports of troops massing prior to a battle but rarely do we get to see a great picture to match them. Armoured vehicles with brightly coloured flags fluttering in bright sunshine give the initial feel of a vintage car rally, a feeling that quickly dissipates as the compositional line between the smoke and the sky, mirrored by the line of telegraph poles on the left, race us to the vanishing point on the horizon where smoke rises from the battle.     

Shi’ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Iraqi army members gather on the outskirts of Hawija Iraq, October 4, 2017.

The clash of El Nabout canes, traditional clothing, strong shadows and an inconvenient lamp post combine to make a picture that intrigues. Mohamed Abd El Gheny’s affectionate picture of men taking part in an ancient martial art that is now a dance form provided one of the visual surprises of the week. The slight tilt to the image and the shadows leading to the lamp post enables its warm brown colour and harsh line to contribute to the shape of the picture instead of destroying it.

Abdu El Kholy and Hamdey El Hamed dance with their El Nabout canes as they perform Tahteeb, an ancient form of martial arts and dance, in the evening light in Sohag, Egypt, September 19, 2017.   REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

A picture’s beauty can be doubled when someone is smiling. When that person is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, I think the effect is fourfold. Mike Hutchings captures Tutu celebrating his birthday in one of the warmest and most affectionate pictures I have seen in weeks. The laugher is infectious, as the figure behind Tutu seems to have a wide grin too.   

Archbishop Demond Tutu laughs as crowds gather to celebrate his birthday by unveiling  an arch built in his honour outside St Georges's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, October 7, 2017.   REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

A slightly bizarre image by Erik de Castro who is covering the fighting in Raqqa, Syria, caught my eye. Why anyone would carefully lay out the uniform of an ISIS fighter on a stairwell is slightly beyond me, especially when a single boot is added to the bottom step? It’s almost as if a political comment is being made, the body and air has been squeezed out of ISIS as the SDF advance on their last strong holds in Raqqa. More pictures here.

A uniform of a member of Islamic State militants is pictures as it was displayed by the Syrian Democratic Forces at their positions inside a building at the frontline in Raqqa, Syria, October 6, 2017.   REUTERS/Erik de Castro

When it ‘rains on your parade’ the day is often spoiled, but quite the opposite happened here for Thierry Gouegnon, who turned a downpour at a campaign rally to his advantage. First, keeping dry, Thierry has used his shelter and those people close to him to frame his picture of women dancing in the torrential rain. What I also like is that I am unsure if it’s taken at night with strong stage lights illuminating the scene, or the light has been created by the sun bursting through the storm clouds. 

Supporters of Joseph Nyuma Boakai, Liberia Vice President and the candidate of Unity Party’s (UP), attend their party’s presidential campaign rally in Monrovia, Liberia, October 7, 2017.    REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon

How could I resist highlighting this sweeping landscape, where the zigzag of hundreds of marching people seem to morph into the distant mountain ranges and then beyond to the  clouds. Photographer Ronen Zvulun makes an epic action picture that I am sure Western film director John Ford would have admired.

Palestinian and Israeli women march, as part of an event organised by ‘Women Wage Peace’ group calling for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, near the Jordan River, in the occupied West Bank October 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun 

Middle East and Africa A Week in Pictures 20 August 2017

A quiet moment in a city under siege in Bassam Khabieh’s picture from Douma in Syria. The body language of the boy is as sad and somber as the grays of the wall behind him, the bricks on the ground left and right of the image keeping the rhythm of the composition that is built up by the position of the figures and the pillars in the wall. The only warm colour in the picture is the headdress of the man looking down at his grandson, the affection and warmth on his face slowly coming to the fore of the image.

A child sits next to his grandfather in Douma, near Damascus, Syria, August 14, 2017.    REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

The Egyptian Cup Final between Al Masry and Al Ahly in Alexandria, was a quiet affair, not that the sport was not competitive, the winner scored in extra time, but because no fans were allowed to attended due to violence at previous fixtures. You can almost hear the ref’s whistle pierce the near silence in Amr Dalsh’s eerie picture of the floodlit pitch surrounded by empty seats.   

A general view of match action during the Egyptian Cup Final between Al Masry and Al Ahly in Alexandria, Egypt August 15, 2017.    REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

I am not a great fan of sunset pictures or silhouettes but Zohra Bensemra's perfectly timed picture of a boy diving into a canal caught my eye this week. The body of the boy appearing to make a horizontal bridge across the canal, his fingers seem to reach out to disturb the calm of the waters before the splash we all know is going to happen. What is most intriguing for me is that this peaceful captured moment is close to the city of Raqqa where a battle rages on.  

A boy cools off in an irrigation canal on the outskirts of Raqqa, Syria, August 16, 2017.    REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

With reports of hundreds being buried in a landslide in Sierra Leone Nigeria based photographer Afolabi Sotunde was at the scene within 24 hours. Rescue workers looking for survivors and recovering bodies. Afolabi's picture of fresh graves being dig for the victims stretch from the foreground of the picture to the horizon giving the viewer a real sense of the large numbers involved in this tragedy. The longer you look at the picture the more graves you see with grim faced workers going about their solemn business, a sad and poignant picture. 

Workers are seen digging graves at Paloko cemetery in Waterloo, Sierra Leone August 17, 2017.   REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

From a very large series of pictures based on recycling this week I could not resist picking out Thierry Gouegnon’s image of a woman carrying utensils made from recycled metal. The brutal vertical line of the corner of the building, almost cutting the picture in half, gives it a mirror image feeling. I love it that the woman’s foot almost touches this imaginary line; and if it did it would break the mirror-like spell. Looking at the position of the people in the frame, especially the person on the right, what also springs to mind, is a still taken on 360 VR where you can see front and back at the same time. 

A woman walks with kitchen tools made of recycled sheet metal in a recycling area in Anoumambo, Abidjan, Ivory Coast August 17, 2017.    REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon

A simple detail picture by Afolabi Sotunde demonstrates the force with which flood waters and mud swept through homes in Pentagon, near Freetown, Sierra Leone.  As you take in the sharp contrast between the white exterior wall and debris crammed against the bars of the window, it dawns on you what little chance of survival the occupants had.

Debris is seen inside the window of a house along the valley after a flash flood at Pentagon, Regent Town, Sierra Leone August 18, 2017.   REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

A captured expression, no matter how old the subject, can reveal innermost thinking, which is the essence of great portrait photography.  There is little doubt in my mind what this baby is thinking in Amr Abdullah Dalsh’s picture during baby swimming lessons. This involves dunking the babe’s under the water, counter intuitive to me, but apparently it teaches them to hold their breath, enables them to sleep better and improves their flexibility.  Intrigued? If so read on here.

An Egyptian baby boy his held by his father before taking part in swimming lessons, the first of its kind, in Cairo, Egypt August 15, 2017.   REUTERS/Amr Abdulalh Dalsh

Middle East and Africa Pictures of the Week August 13, 2017

This is a collection of pictures that caught my eye from the Middle East and Africa this week. I chose them for a variety of reasons -- a captured moment, something that made me pause for thought, great design , great light or even something that simply made me smile.  These are not necessarily the top news pictures of the week but may have slipped by largely unnoticed in the tsunami of news from the region.

Rival demonstrations took place as the decision was made on whether a vote of confidence in President Zuma should be a secret ballot. Hundreds took to the streets and Mike Hutchings darted between opposing rallies. Using a long lens,  Mike filed this picture to show the number of people present, a good picture in its own right. But a crop bought the cut-out caricature image of Zuma from the background, where it was ‘hidden’ by the signs saying ‘the truth will set you free’ and ‘Woodstock’, to the foreground.

Anti-Zuma protesters, civil society groups and faith communities march against President Zuma, in Cape Town, South Africa August 7, 2017.   REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

Queues of Kenyan voters snake from left to right as they wait to cast their votes in the early morning.  I love the order of the lines, where people stand with almost equal personal space between them. But what I like most is that the order breaks down and the line meanders about. A picture of ordered calm where chaos and violence is feared.

People queue outside a polling station in Nairobi Kenya waiting to cast their vote during the national election August 8, 2017.  REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

 Showing the horror of a death during a riot is never easy. You need to show enough of the body to ensure the news is covered but not so much of the horror that it either offends viewers or removes all dignity from the victim. Thomas Mukoya’s picture of a woman reacting to a death during clashes after the Kenyan election does just that. You can almost hear the screams from her contorted face, your eye led immediately from her mouth and up from the corner of the picture along the line of the edge of the building to the slumped body on the ground. There is enough depth of field so you can see the shape of the body but not so much that the focus is on death. This picture is the reaction of the living to the sight of death.

A woman screams and gestures as she mourns the death of a protester in Mathare, In Nairobi, Kenya, August 9, 2017.   REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Often it’s the unexpected that catches the eye. Images from the battle for Raqqa would could be expected to show monochrome destruction and violence and we have plenty of them on the wire. Zohra Bensemra’s affectionate portrait of a YPG fighter taking a selfie in a relaxed moment is an antidote to the violence. A bright yellow hat band is almost perfectly matched in colour and tone with graffiti on the wall. The reds, greens and blues, and black and white lines of graffiti dancing like an abstract painting, but that could be because I cannot read the Arabic text. What is nicest for me in this array of colour is that the young soldier is as relaxed as if she is doing a picture of her new hat at the Royal Ascot races and not in the battle torn streets of Raqqa.

A People Protection Unit (YPG) fighter takes a selfie in the old city of Raqqa, Syria August 9, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

It would be easy to think this is a still from a movie. It’s not. Mohamed Torokman’s picture is perfect in its screen-like composition, red flames and black smoke highlighting the soldier, sunlight catching his face and hands as he aims his rifle. If the solder was a little to the right or left or the flames a little lower this picture would not work. All the dark green of the uniform and black smoke would kill the shape. What can’t be seen in this picture are protesters who are hurling rocks at him during clashes at the West Bank. 

An Israeli soldier walks points his weapon toward Palestinian protesters during clashes in the West Bank village of Kofr Qadom near Nablus August 11, 2017.  REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Sometimes you get so pent up and angry when you are trying to make a point or get yourself understood you just want to scream. I think Afolabi Sotunde’s picture captures that very moment, a simple and direct portrait but full of emotion about to burst.

Supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari rally at the Unity Fountain in support of his Administration in Abuja, Nigeria August 11, 2017.   REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

The strength of this image is that it is almost abstract; it could be easily missed as it takes time to understand what is going on. The fact that Zohra Bensemra has taken the visual risk to transmit a picture that is so unexpected and very different, from a war zone, can only be admired. After the dark shadow on the left the first thing you see is the pink object, a water tap, itself somewhat unexpected. Then you begin to see the running water, its shadow and the stains on the wall. Soon the image that initially looked abstract takes form. 

The shadow of an internally displaced girl who fled Raqqa is cast at a water point at a camp in Ain Issa, north of Raqqa, Syria August 12, 2017.   REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra