A Week in Pictures, Middle East and Africa, December 13, 2019

As the year-end approaches I thought that I would compile some of the images that I have highlighted over the last 12 months and put it in a slideshow with music. It’s frenetic to say the least, but I hope you enjoy being visually bombarded. Click on the image below, expand to full screen, click play and hold on to your hat. Respect to the whole Reuters pictures team in the Middle East and Africa for producing such a striking set of images.

A long-term project finally published after months of hard work that involved several photographers in different counties with pictures that date from the 40s, 50s and 60s and today. A terrific set of images that bring to life quite an abstract concept: a ‘before and after’ where the ‘before’ was decades ago and the ‘after’ only exists in sense and feeling through human stories and not physical reality. This visual concept was used to illustrate the complex and pollical issue of funding UNRWA. See the whole story here. 

A combination picture shows young women playing basketball at the Women’s Activity Centre in Qalandia in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in this undated handout photo provided by UNRWA and Palestinian school girls playing basketball at the Women’s Activity Centre in Qalandia in the Israeli-occupied West Bank September 17, 2019.  REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

A combination picture shows Palestinian school girls waiting in line to collect UNRWA prepared food parcels during the first Intifada in the Gaza Strip in this handout picture believed to be taken in 1988 by UNRWA photographer Zaven Mazakian and Palestinian school girls waiting in line to collect snacks in a UNRWA-run school in the Gaza Strip September 2, 2019. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa 

A simple but effective detail picture from Ramzi Boudina catches the eye this week. Five candidates and five empty chairs seems a counter-intuitive way to illustrate the angry and bitterly contested Algerian election. The calm and cool effect of this image is created by the almost monochromatic colours and the regular spacing of the dark-toned shapes of the chair backs.

Ballot papers of the five presidential candidates are displayed at a polling station in Algiers, Algeria December 12, 2019.    REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina 

In complete contrast to the calm of the detail image above, a second picture by Ramzi of vote casting is as frenetic as it is perfectly timed. Your eye is drawn to the centre of the swirling, chaotic melee, to the crisp white voting slip and to Tebbourne’s face. If the paper was held an inch higher, the dark gap between the head and paper would dislocate face and ballot, an inch lower and the regular shape of the ballot paper would be broken, the focal point being lost. Despite the bright TV light in the background, your eye is drawn down to its reflection in the ballot box and then to the slit in the box.   

Algeria’s presidential candidate Abdelmaiid Tebbourne cast his ballot during the presidential election in Algiers, Algeria December 12, 2019.   REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina 

This is a wonderfully composed and side lit picture by Njeri Mwangi, with the subject of the image seeming to be crushed into the bottom of the frame. The visual weight of the microphone stand, police and security bear down on Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko, but the highlights picking out the details of his upturned face push back just as hard. Finally, the highlight on the policeman’s blue shirt allows your eye to escape to the top of the frame, and without it you would be trapped in this visual pressure cooker.

Prison and police officers keep watch over Nairobi’s Governor Mike Sonko as he appears for a hearing on his bond application after he was arrested on corruption related charges, at the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi, Kenya December 11, 2019,   REUTERS/Njeri Mwangi  

Many of the protests in Iraq have been bloody with more than 400 killed in recent weeks. The expectation is that you’d see images of death, injury, fires, armed security and violent clashes – all of which we have on the file. So this protest image by Essam al-Sudani comes as quite a surprise. Balloon-holding students are set against a beautiful blue sky in muted but determined protest. I really like it that you have to explore very hard to get additional detail from the picture whose shadows are dark amid the light bright. This sense is highlighted by the fact that most of the faces are covered or obscured, except one. To me this puts a human face on the crowd and I am rewarded with the detail after looking so hard.

University of Basra students carry balloons as they take part in an anti-government protest in Basra, Iraq December 8, 2019.    REUTERS/Essam al-Sudani

One of the oldest tricks in the book to grab visual attention is to set a small detail against an expanse of nondescript visual noise and they eye will be drawn immediately to it. If that detail is a bright colour set against a muted background you will draw the eye; if you set a small area of high contrast against flat tones the same will be achieved. Christopher Pike has done all three. What is also interesting is that this image is somewhat counter- intuitive to the whole story, which is about caving. It took a while to shoot and was released this week – read on here 

A member of the Middle East Caving and Expeditionary Team looks that the landscape after exploring the Birdwing cave, the deepest in gulf, on Jebel Kawr near Ibri, Oman December 1, 2019.    REUTERS/Christopher Pike 

A very gentle picture that is beautifully composed and timed from Corinna Kern. The horizon line divides the image up into classic thirds. The curve of the woman’s wind-swept clothing and the position of her arms complete the sweep of compositional line of the kite and its tail. To top it all I love the position of the boy in the background that acts a as a counterweight to the slightly right-of-centre position of the woman and the solid black shape her clothing makes. 

A woman flies a kite at Katara beach, Doha, Qatar December 13, 2019.   REUTERS/Corinna Kern 

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