A striking picture of wild fires in Lebanon
from Mohamed Azakir, the silhouetted trees giving a sense of scale against the
raging fires and night skies.
Wildfires burn a
forest in Chbaniyeh village, Lebanon October 9, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Thomas Mukoya captures the moment Liban Abdullah Omar reacts to his acquittal of involvement in the Westgate attack. As the tear is wiped away he looks across the picture frame into the space left by the empty seat. This space creates a sense of momentary calm and quiet. I love the way his other hand is delicately holding another tissue. What I would like to make disappear is the white square to the left but crop it out and the image loses its shape. Read on here.
We are left in no doubt by Mike Hutching’s
picture that this is about – anti-corruption. The black bold letters scream out
against the reds of the banners, adding to the noise of the shouting likely
coming from the open mouth. In fact this picture is so noisy we hardly notice the
quite acute angle of the tilt as Mike composes his frame.
Zohra builds her picture up by using the framing of the black gates, the centrally placed minaret and a low angle to let the figures play into the stage she has composed. This feeling of stage may also be enhanced by the bright reds, greens and yellows worn by the “actors” as they move into the setting.
You have to work hard to look into the
shadows of Essam al-Sudani’s picture through the glare of the flames to see
what is going on. Once you do, you are a little too visually exhausted to be
met with the sad vision of three boys playing in the fumed-filled air among the
rubbish on the ground.
As far as the eye can see bricks and more
bricks make up a smoky, desolate landscape captured by Abdullah Dhiaa Al-Deen. The sun beats down to bleach all colour from the
picture as we are drawn to the single focal point of the figure labouring away,
with that set between the two other secondary features in the picture, the
chimneys spewing smoke.
Two things strike me immediately about Muhammad Hamed’s wonderful picture; the stoic nature of what looks like lonely work and the greyness of the classroom devoid of students. But this initial impression of loneliness and grey quickly disappears when we look at her face, the energy of her teaching of what looks like trigonometry. You can then imagine the children all at home watching online. And on the subject of angles and shapes, we are drawn by the arc of the projector cable from one side of the picture through her arm to the pen poised on the white board.
Who can resist an image that has bright orange and yellow flames reflected in a black pool of water with the additional focal point of a cloaked figure poised mid-step? Not me. A visual treat from Afolabi Sotunde that delights us with moment, colour and composition. The story behind this powerful image is not so delightful as we learn of energy waste and pollution. Read on here.
Bolts and padlocks add a literal sense to coronavirus
(COVID-19) lockdown in Mohammed Salem’s thoughtfully shot picture of food being
delivered. Timing is all important to get the figure at the centre of the
smallest of gaps and it’s not an easy one to expose for either.
A worker is seen through an opening in a school door as he carries a sack of flour distributed by UNRWA to be delivered to a Palestinian family amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Gaza City October 7, 2020. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
