A Week in Pictures, Middle East and Africa, August 16, 2019

Strong colours and graphic shapes grab your attention immediately in Benoit Tessier’s

picture, with the open arms of the man being searched filling the clean background of the
cloudless blue sky. It also has a slightly bizarre feeling that highlights the tension of the
pat-down. What can you possibly find in such wide-open spaces that stretch to the far
horizon? I am sure there is sound reasoning behind this. Read on here.

A French soldier of the 2^nd Foreign Engineer Regiment searches a man during an area control operation in the Gourma region during Operation Barkhane in Ndaki, Mali, July 27, 2019.   REUTERS/Benoit Tessier 

Baz Ratner’s image is completely abstract and we can only guess at what is depicted in
the eye-catching swirl of hot red, orange and blacks. No figures, no real shape and no
sense of scale but you can’t help but continue to look to make sense of it, being drawn in
deeper and deeper. Once you read the caption you find out what is going on.

Lava is seen glowing inside the crater of the Nyiragongo volcano inside the Virunga national park near Goma in the Democratic republic of Congo August 9, 2019.   REUTERS/Baz Ratner 

Continuing with the theme of abstraction and moving slowly to the figurative, Feisal
Omar’s image of sheep being led to market is a pleasing graphic image with a gentle
curved composition and a strong right to left sweep to it.

Sheep are seen at a livestock market ahead of the Eid-al-Adha festival in Mogadishu, Somalia august 10, 2019.    REUTERS/Feisal Omar 

All good things come in threes so I had to complete the abstraction set with Muhammad
Hamed’s star-lit sky. The figure on the rock outcrop using a light gives us a single focal
point that both the previous images didn’t have. What has struck me is just how
comforting this focal point is and how - when it’s lacking from an image - it is missed
even if the image is strong in its overall design

A man watches the stars seen in the skies over Al-Kharza area of Wadi Rum in the south of Amman, Jordan July 27, 2019.   REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

A powerful and angry picture by Ammar Awad. Two policemen moving through a crowd
of struggling security forces and protesters are momentarily circled by the movement
throughout the image. The dark shapes of the uniformed men are harsh against the
pavement and the drift of tear gas, their weapons a stark focal point of the image. If the
circular composition is not enough to lead your eye to the police in the centre, the hand in
the foreground points the way.

Israel police clash with Palestinian worshippers on the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as temple Mount as Muslims mark Eid al-Adha in Jerusalem Old City August 11, 2019.    REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Amir Cohen’s picture is one of those images that leads you in layer after layer like a
stage set. You start with the hooded figure on the left and his book, then across to the
man in the peaked cap and his book on the right, then down to sleeping man centrally
placed and next to him another man deep in concentration in his book. All set against a
wonderful backdrop of the ancient and yellowed wall.

Jewish worshipers pray on the Tisha B’Av, a day of fasting and lament, that commemorates the date in the Jewish calendar on which it is believed the First and Second temples were destroyed, near the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City August 11, 2019.   REUTERS/Amir Cohen  

Umit Bektas’ image looks like a bas-relief of white-robed figures on a rocky foreground
against a jet-black sky. The picture is drained of almost all colour and the eye is led to the
back of the image through the ever-decreasing size of the figures, which are dotted about
equally in space from foreground to far distance. This visual impression works only
because almost all the figures are uniformly clad.

Muslim pilgrims gather on Mount Mercy on the plains of Arafat during the annual Haj pilgrimage, outside the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia August 10, 2019.    REUTERS/Umit Bektas

A very brutal image by Philimon Bulawayo from the clashes in Harare that raises many
questions. A woman lies unconscious as a red-booted, baton-holding, policeman looks
down at her as he strolls by. The viewer may leap to many conclusions. Is she dead? I
checked with the photographer and was told no, she is okay. The body language appears
so aggressive and as an image is as powerful as the violence that led up to this scene. 

A policeman walks past a woman injured during clashes after police banned protests over austerity and rising costs called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in Harare, Zimbabwe, August 16, 2019.  REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo 

A Week in Pictures, Middle East and Africa, July 19, 2019

It’s too hard to choose a single image from a series of pictures the team shot at the Africa Cup of Nations to show the emotions around a goal being scored, so I’ve picked two – from  anguish to jubilation. Francis Kokoroko’s picture of the stunned faces for me says it all, open-mouthed utter disbelief. The curve of the shadow folding in closer and closer to the fan in centre of the image. I imagine this stunned look went on for quite a few seconds, giving Francis time to maybe even reposition himself to get a better angle to work the light.  

Football fans react after Tunisia’s Rami Bedoui scored an own goal during their Africa Cup of nations (Afcon) match against Ghana, as they watch the match on a screen in Elmina, Ghana July 8, 2019.   REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko 

On the other hand Zohra Bensemra would have had no time at all to capture the rapturous  excitement in the boys’ faces as they celebrate a goal. The direct eye contact means you are right there in this moment of manic joy. To see the rest of the images click here 

Senegal fans celebrate after Sadio mane scores a goal during the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) Round of 16 match against Uganda in Dakar, Senegal July 5, 2019.    REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra 

Corinna Kern’s picture is a “what on earth is going on here?” picture which makes you want to know more. Corinna, who has been working on this project for several weeks, has avoided the temptation of shooting this too tight on the masks of the performers. Instead she lets the black frame of the doorway draw you in. The benefit of this is that we get to see the stark “stage”, which is actually a bus station. It’s at this point we realise this image is almost monochromatic. Read on here for more quirky images.      

Lior Avshalem, 42 and Rotem Cohen, 41 actors from the Mystorin Theatre Ensemble, perform is the group’s show ‘Seven’ a site specific act that uses all seven floors of the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv, Israel may 25, 2019.    REUTERS/Corinna Kern 

An almost intrusive picture taken by Olivia Acland using a wide-angle lens forces the viewer into the space and mind of the woman who is being tested for signs of fever, a symptom of Ebola. She avoids our stare, but we get a such a powerful sense of fear and apprehension that we hardly notice the visual noise in the background.

A health worker checks the temperature of a woman as part of the Ebola screening when entering the General Hospital in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo July 15, 2019.    REUTERS/Olivia Acland

The colours, line of design and shape in Cooper Inveen’s picture are just irresistible. The line of the hedge sends your eye racing to the focal point of the girls sheltering under a red umbrella. If the diagonal line of the hedge was not enough we have the run of glistening water on the muddy track to also draw us to the huddle of girls. The complimentary colours of red and green shimmer against each other while the warm  tones in the road and clothing counter the damp weather. Ideally, the post behind the trees wouldn’t be there, but the world is far from perfect. Read about Mariatu Sesay here. 

Mariatu Sesay, 15, walks home with her school mates in a countryside village in Sierra Leone. REUTERS/Cooper Inveen

Cold and stark is probably the best way to describe Ahmed Jadallah’s image of the aircraft carrier USS Boxer. The tones are grey and cold, all colour has been bleached out of the image by the strong overhead and slightly hazy light. Our eye moves away from the menacing black shape of the vessel, looking for warmth in the empty space, but all we see is a tanker in the distant haze. 

USS Boxer (LHD-4) ship sails near a tanker in the Arabian Sea off Oman July 17, 2019.   REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah 

Tiksa Negri’s image is a potent display of political defiance: a youth leader, draped in a flag, stands in front of a sea of faces that stretches back to the far horizon. For me the power of the scene is in the fact everyone is seated on the ground, you sense that the crowd is silent, listening. The clean colours and vertical lines of the flag cape cut through the sea of faces, the top line of the flag matches the horizon, the youth’s head is almost lost in the background of the trees.   

A Sidama youth leader carrying a flag addresses people as they gather for a meeting to declare their own region in Hawassa, Ethiopia July 17, 2019.   REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri

I kept coming back to Mohamed Abd El Ghany’s image and I wasn’t sure why. It doesn’t have people in it, but the eye on the sarcophagus seems to follow you around the room, like something out of a B horror movie. I took the time to look harder, then it struck me: the face looks like that of a child who has just woken up too soon and is in that mysterious transition period between sleep and wakefulness. What do you think? 

A sarcophagus that was discovered during archaeological excavations near the King Amenemhat II pyramid is displayed during a presentation of the find, south of Cairo, Egypt July 13, 2019.   REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Shafiek Tassiem’s picture has an air of tension about it. Perhaps obvious since it shows   two soldiers in full gear on the paved streets, but I think it’s more than the obvious that creates this feeling. Maybe it’s the clever symmetrical composition using the barred windows, the soldiers placed equally apart. Maybe it’s the line that cuts the image horizontally in half that is not comfortable for the eye?  Then there’s the slow shutter speed blurring the figure in the foreground, so the person seems to be hurrying past. I’m still not sure but looking at this image I feel apprehensive.   

Soldiers patrol as they are deployed to quell gang violence in Manenberg township Cape Town South Africa July 18, 2019.   REUTERS/ Shafiek Tassiem

A Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa January 11, 2019

A belated happy New Year to all. It might have gone unnoticed that in UAE Hamad I Mohammed photographed what appears to be an alien landing. Well, that is what it looks like to me or maybe it’s a sneak preview of Blade Runner 3. A beam of light shimmers from the Burj Khalifa as if the occupants of an alien craft are searching for something or someone in the grey-brown tower blocks. You can see the best of Reuters 2018 here 

The Buri Khalifa us lit up during new Year celebrations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 1, 2019.   REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

The composition of Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah’s picture is ‘in your face’ very much as his lens was in the face of the security guard to produce this striking picture. The blue of the sky creates a clean backdrop for the strong shapes and lines to cut across. Am I worried the face is not perfectly cut in half or that the cane extends beyond the edge of the frame? Not at all, as this makes the image bleed wider than its borders, giving it a ‘big screen’ feel.   

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir waves to his supporters during a rally at the Green Square in Khartoum, Sudan January 9, 2019.    REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdullah

Perfect timing as the ashes leave the shovel in front of the rising sun gives a powerful left-to-right compositional flow to Feisal Omars’s picture. The figures on the left in the background help to echo the wider V shape that makes up the dark foreground. The bare branches of the tree cut through the haze of rising smoke and the handle of the shovel adds to this compositional echo.     

A trader uses a shovel as he attempts to recover his merchandise within the smoldering remains of clothing stalls after an overnight fire at the Bakara market in Mogadishu, Somalia January 11, 2019.    REUTERS/Fesial Omar

A strange moment captured by Olivia Acland as people react to election news in DRC. Your eye goes immediately to the blue cross and then quickly to the figure on the right, hand on head, mouth open and eyes closed with tears, his colleagues closing in to console him as they look at a picture of their leader. But look deeper into the picture. A woman is smiling and posing as she seems to be shooting a selfie of herself in front of election banners.  

Supporters of Felix Tshisekedi, leader of the Congolese main opposition the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) react at the party HQ in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo January 10, 2019. REUTERS/Olivia Acland

I’ve broken my own rule and added a picture with no watermark (so no stealing please), the reason being that it completely destroys the key focal point of Philimon Bulawayo’s picture - the upward look of the man. Confusing action of what appears to be people jumping up and down is exaggerated by the left-hand-down tilt of the picture and countered by the upwards look of the salesman.   

A man looks up at old Zimbabwean currency notes for sale in Harare, Zimbabwe January 10, 2019.   REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

A giant wave of people swirls around Fayulu in Baz Ratner’s picture. It’s as if the arms of his supporters are spinning the shape and flow of the image around and around so you are drawn into the picture like a whirlpool. What I admire too is that I know exactly how much energy and hard work it would have taken for Baz to get into this position through the crowds of supporters. More on the election here 

Martin Fayulu, runner up in Democratic Republic of Congo’s presidential election waves to his supporters as he arrives to a political rally in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, January 11, 2019.   REUTERS/.Baz Ratner

‘Shit Happens’ it most certainly does and I am drawn uncomfortably to Ibraheem Abu Mustafa’s powerful picture. On one hand I cannot help but admire the perfect visual combination of the wording on the man’s shirt and the injured boy. But I am also aware that the boy is suffering greatly and his injury will probably blind him in one eye. I would much rather that this image did not exist and the boy had his sight. But he was injured, we report the news as it happens, and ‘shit happens’. we are following up to see what has happened to this boy.

A wounded Palestinian boy is evacuated during a protest at the Israel-Gaza border fence, in the southern Gaza strip January 11, 2019.   REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

A Week in Pictures Middle East & Africa February 23, 2018

In the confusion of claims that Boko Haram had kidnapped over 100 teenage school girls and counter claims that the military had rescued them Photographer Afolabi Sotunde was assigned to find out what had actually happened. The scene he was met with was scared people coming back in from the bush who has escaped the attack, empty class rooms, weeping relatives and for me most poignantly a single lost pair of slippers (flip flops) left in the sand. Catch up with the ongoing story here.

Abandoned slippers in left in the sand of the school compound in Dapchi in the northeastern state of Yobe, Nigeria, February 23, 2018 where dozens of girls went missing after an attack on the village suspected to have been carried out by Boko Haram.  REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde 

After spending weeks shooting the looming drought in Cape Town, Mike Hutching’s in-depth story has finally been published. It was hard to choose a single image, but for me a lone figure, carrying a water container and squeezed between the shadows seems to sum up the situation, or maybe a lucky escape. Day Zero, when the taps in Cape Town will be turned off, has been put back from mid April to mid July. Maybe if the rains come and the reservoirs are replenished,   the city will have a lucky escape too. I fear that in the long term there is no escape from water shortage. His whole picture story, with some amazing drone footage, can be seen here.  

  
A man carries a bucket used to collect water from a small roadside spring in Cape Town, South Africa, February 4, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings 

Helping hands reach up as the body of dead Palestinian teenager Abdullah Abu Shekhah is lowered into his grave in Ibraheem Abu Mustafa’s frantic and distressing picture. It looks like Death himself is taking another soul as mourners gather to take a last look at their relative or friend. The gentle touch of a hand on the young man’s face is a calm moment in the eye of a storm in this powerful picture.  

Mourners bury the body of Palestinian teenager Abdullah Abu Shekhah during his funeral in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 18, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

With uncomfortable similarities to Ibraheem’s image above, there is no mistaking the desperation in a storm of violence in Bassam Khabieh’s picture from Ghouta. But this time, instead of the helping hands lowering a dead man into his last resting place, a living but unconscious woman is lifted up from a shelter that looks like a concrete grave to what we hope is relative safety. More pictures here. 

Civil defence help an unconscious woman from a shelter in the besieged town of Douma in eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria, February 22, 2018. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh 

Recent changes in Zimbabwe’s politics have been, to say the least, rapid. Photographer Philimon Bulawayo’s carefully positioned and composed picture of Nelson Chamisa seems to have the full political weight of Morgan Tsvangirai bearing down at him, even at his funeral. The small sliver of black background by the side of Chamisa’s face is so important to make this image work. 

Nelson Chamisa, the new leader for Movement For Democratic Change (MDC), looks on during the funeral parade of Morgan Tsvangirai in Harare, Zimbabwe February 19, 2018. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

James Akena’s picture has a somewhat clumsy composition. The boy on the left is walking out of the frame, the bush on the right should either be completely in the frame or cropped out, and the child in yellow is a little distracting. But I really like this picture for two reasons: the children being held so tightly by the adults to ensure they are not lost, and the objects being carried by the equally spaced figures. Bucket for water, child and, probably, all the worldly goods the family could flee the conflict with. 

Congolese family, who migrated from Democratic Republic of Congo by fleeing on a boat across Lake Albert, arrives in Ntoroko, Uganda February 17, 2018. REUTERS/James Akena 

I can’t help thinking about two things when I look at Khalil Ashawi’s picture of resting troops. First, just how well the camouflage actually works. It takes a while to see all five exhausted soldiers. And then, bizarrely, I am put mind of the trolls turned to stone in JRR Tolkien’s book The Hobbit. Maybe it’s the grey rock behind the resting figures and the light coming in from the back of the picture through the trees. 

Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army fighters rest near the city of Afrin, Syria February 19, 2018. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Taking full advantage of the warm evening light, long shadows and classic thirds with his ‘environmental portrait’ of two spacemen, Ronen Zvulun manages to make us believe, if only momentarily, that we are on the surface of an alien  planet. I can’t quite my head around the notion that dressing up in a space suit and walking around in the desert constitute simulating a mission to Mars, but who am I judge. Judge for yourself here

Israeli scientists participate in an experiment simulating a mission to Mars, at the D-MARS Desert Mars Analog Ramon Station project of Israel's Space Agency, Ministry of Science, near Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, February 18, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

There was no way that James Akena would fail to shoot great pictures at a hydroelectric construction project in Uganda and he didn’t disappoint. A lone figure in a cavernous underground tunnel is dwarfed by waves of light that shift from darkest blacks to golden yellow in shapes that emulate the water that will rush through this shaft. It makes for an irresistible image. 

A contractor walks in a tunnel at the construction site at Karuma 600 megawatts hydroelectric power project under construction on River Nile, Uganda February 20, 2018.   REUTERS/James Akena

It’s not often you get to see an elephant suspended upside down by its feet, but Thomas Mukoya’s picture delights us with just that. Ears flopping like Disney’s Dumbo, and a ranger holding the elephant’s tail, are watched by a small crowd that has gathered. The clouds in the sky complete the scene as if they had been drawn to order by a Disney animator. The whole story here.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers load a tranquillised elephant onto a truck during a translocation exercise to Ithumba Camp in Tsavo East National Park, in Solio Ranch in Nyeri County, Kenya, February 21, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

The worn climbing holds in Zohra Bensemra's picture take a little time to see. The eye is first drawn to the strong blacks of the window and the doorway, then to the child dangling from the window. What is going on? Only the caption can explain. This is a great example of how a mysterious picture draws us into a sequence of images because we just have to know more. All is revealed here

Ahlem, four, climbs up a wall to reach her rabbit's hideaway at her troglodyte house on the outskirts of Matmata, Tunisia, February 5, 2018. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra