At first glance Mohamed
al-Sayaghi’s picture looks like the confused scene from some sort of blast or
explosion, but it’s not. You are drawn into the image through the chaos, eyes
searching out the focal point of the white flour sacks on the ground. Deeper
into the image you make out the side of the truck, laden with dozens of sacks
and then you finally see the men at work. They are disposing of sacks of flour
that are considered expired or contaminated, in a country that faces areas of
malnutrition.
Workers dispose of sacks of
wheat, provided by the World Food Program (WFP), which is reportedly expired,
on the outskirts of Sanaa, Yemen August 28, 2019. REUTERS/ Mohamed al-Sayaghi
Mohammed Salem’s picture is
divided in two by the classic shape of an AK47 rifle cutting diagonally through
the image of the funeral cortege of a Hamas security force member. On the
right, comrades stand to attention with calm respect either side of the body
and you can just see the dead man’s
face. To the left people reach in to try to take pictures with mobile phones. A
picture that reflects the confusion surrounding the death of this soldier in a bomb blast in Gaza, and that carries echoes of the internal division within
Gaza.
Members of Palestinian Hamas
security forces carry the body of their comrade Salama Al-Nadeem during his
funeral in Gaza City August 28, 2019.
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Two days earlier Mohammed Salem
was illustrating the power cuts that Gaza is facing. With an image that is
almost totally black Mohammed teases with just enough detail to let the viewer
know this is in a narrow street with people trying to go about their business.
There is a hint of sky squeezed between darkened buildings. A distant figure
walks through the only pool of light of the ground and a figure stands in a
light that illuminates his face and arms as he chats with a friend who reaches
out to him.
Palestinians use their mobile
phone torches during a power cut at the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, August
26, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammed
Salem
What is most striking about
Khalid a-Mousily’s image is the uncertain look on the boy’s face on the left of
the picture and how the composition of the image leads you back to him.
Although initially you are quickly drawn away from his face by the visual noise
of the red and white flowers, the grieving man on the right and the centrally
placed man with his head in his hands, the flow and shape of the design takes
you back to the boy. His face shows a mixture of emotion: he’s confused, concerned and frightened
at the same time.
Relatives of Kazem Ali Mohssen, a
brigade commander of the Popular Mobilisation Force, who was killed by an
attack from an unmanned aircraft close to the Syrian border in Anbar, mourn
during his funeral in Baghdad, Iraq August 26, 2019. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily
Alaa al-Marjani’s picture has a
bittersweet feel to it. Every compositional point and edge has been slightly
cropped off and I feel cheated as I instinctively want them in frame. The
bottom edge and point of the woman’s dress is just out of frame, the decoration
at the top of the image is neither in nor out, I even want the lines of the carpet
to flow exactly into the corners of the frame, but they don’t. But what a
wonderfully complex image this is, bold shapes of flat black tones arranged
around the warmth of the rich brown doors; complex and beautiful gold and
silver script all divided up in a classic
thirds format and squeezed just in.
An Iraqi woman is seen at the
Imam Ali shrine at the holy Shi’ite city of Najaf, Iraq, August 23, 2109. REUTERS/Alaa al-Marjani
A gentle visual smile from Thomas
Mukoya as he illustrates the census in Kenya by using a mirror in one of the
homes to double the number of people in the image. The illusion is a little
harder to detect as the mirror line is not central.
An enumerator uses a census
laptop to record details of a family participating in the 2019 Kenya Population
and Housing Census in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya August 24, 2019. EUTERS/Thomas Mukoya
Underexposed, flare in the
lense, no people in the image and very little colour. On paper, Afolabi Sotunde’s picture should not
work but it does. As part of a series of picture stories to mark the 400th
anniversary of the start of the slave trade from Africa to North America this
intriguing image is from one of the many historic sites associated with the
trade. Although it has a faint feeling of hope it is tinged with sadness. As
your eye moves from the single, almost derelict hut and away from the line of
trees under a cool sky you finally notice the gentle roll of the waves of the
Atlantic Ocean. Once you notice this you can almost hear the waves in the still
air, giving you time to reflect on what happened here 400 years ago. You can
see the full story here.
A shrine is seen on a beach where
thousands of African slaves were once loaded onto ship in the historic slave
port of Ouidah, Benin, July 17, 2019. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
I can’t help feeling a little
uncomfortable as it dawns on me that of Fawaz Salmon’s picture from Yemen has similarities
with a picture of a big game hunter standing, foot on kill. Death, pride and
destruction all captured in one frame. A fighter stands, foot on vehicle, as a
fuel tanker with a burned-out cab burns in the background. At his feet a man
holds up a two-finger salute of victory.
Southern separatist fighters
patrol a road during clashes with government forces in Aden, Yemen, August 29,
2019. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman
From the mists of time in
my head comes the Flanders and Swann 1950’s Hippopotamus song “Mud! Mud!
Glorious mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood” and I am delighted
by Abdullah Rashid’s picture. Cool blues and greys take any heat from the
picture as people enjoy the water and therapeutic muds of the Tigris River very
much like the imaginary hippo cooling itself in the song. Go on Google it if
you don’t know it, it will make you smile.
People sit in water after being
covered with mud, which is reported to help treat skin diseases, on the banks
of the Tigris River west of Mosul, Iraq August 20, 2019. REUTERS/Abdullah Rashid
Ronen Zvulun’s image of a
man playing with a dog has a very edgy feel to me. You can’t quite see what the
dog - and that is a big dog - is jumping up to grab in its mouth. The man looks just a little apprehensive,
but still keeps tight hold on his can of beer. It is a party after all. This all
set against a graffiti background where the slow shutter speed seems to blur
the letters and the shadows so we can’t quite get a firm visual grip on the
details. It’s taken Ronen many weeks of shooting to get this story together, hence
the January date on this image, but now it is released
you can see it all here.
A man plays with a dog as a party
takes place in a nearby basement, known as Strauss, that is occasionally used
as a venue for underground parties in Jerusalem January 25, 2019. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The best smile of the week has
just got to Baz Ratner for this wonderfully affectionate picture from
Mozambique as the country prepares for the Pope’s visit. You just can’t grab
enough visual joy from this image fast enough, that friendly toothless smile,
the warmth of the tones created by the evening sunlight, the fizz of the cloth
texture, colour and patterns and the corridor of the Baobab trees that lead you
off to the horizon. All combined it makes you just want to visit.
A man rides on the back of a cart pulled by
a bull though Baobab alley near the city of Morondava, Madagascar, August 30,
2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner