It’s very hard to single out one image from
this terrific story on how slaves travelled through Ghana by Siphiwe Sibeko and
Francis Kokoroko that marks the 400th anniversary of the slave trade to the United
States, so I won’t. Very clever composition by Siphiwe, who makes the focal
point of his picture the waters of the river. This is achieved by exposing for
the highlight bouncing off the river and squeezing the figures into the bottom
right of the frame. It takes quite a while for your eyes to adjust to the
bright light before you notice the solemn group standing in prayer in the
waters. Read on here.
Migrants are seen after being rescued by
the Libyan coast guard off the coast of Tripoli, Libya July 26, 2019. REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny
Tourists gather at the Assin Manso river,
Ghana, July 23, 2019. Near their journey’s end in Ghana, the captives were
given a last, ritual bath in the river before being sold. Today the Assin Manso
site is a sacred place of remembrance.
REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
Francis Kokoroko’s portrait is a powerful,
proud image created by lighting the figure with a single light source so he appears
to be emerging into the light from dark shadows. The light catches every detail
of the proud lines on his face. Your eye is only momentarily distracted from
his face by the red decorations on his hand and the richness of the cloth
before returning to that wonderful face.
Nana Assenso, 68, chief of Adidwan, a
village in Ghana’s interior, looks on before visiting the grave of his uncle,
Kwame Badu, in Adidwan, Ashanti Region, Ghana. His uncle’s name Kwame Badu, has
been passed down through the family in remembrance of his ancestor with that same
name who was captured and sold into slavery.
REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko
A missile strike on a parade that killed more
than 30 people created a devastating and horrific scene. Fawaz Salman,
confronted by this horror, photographed everything. Many pictures were far too
distressing to publish but this image, taken seconds after the blast, captures
the chaos and violence. The dead and the injured litter the ground, and people
choke on acrid smoke as others try to help. To show mutilated bodies and
bleeding wounds would not give you any more information than you can gather from
this image. Fawaz has shown enough of the horror of the attack without
offending the reader with gratuitous and intrusive imagery of people’s
suffering. This was hard to do if you imagine his ears were still ringing from
the blast that could have easily killed him too. Read on here.
Soldiers lie on the ground after a missile
attack on a military parade during a graduation ceremony for newly recruited
troops in Aden, Yemen, August 1, 2019.
REUTERS/Fawaz Salman
What appears to be a peaceful domestic
scene of a woman ironing while watching TV is not all it seems. Philimon
Bulawayo’s thoughtful image illustrates the 18-hour power cuts that Zimbabwe is
currently facing. The cold blue light of the TV and the single overhead lamp don’t
look quite right in this warm domestic scene. On reading the caption you
realise why. There is only power in the middle of the night. Read on here.
Cynthia Chabwinn irons clothes late at
night after electricity was restored as the country faces 18-hour daily power
cuts in Harare, Zimbabwe July 30, 2019.
REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
There is no escaping the strong shapes that
create a rhythm that drums out a beat in Khalid al-Mousily’s picture. Lucky too
for Khalid (one wonders how long he waited for that to happen?) that a boy is
diving off the structure, frozen in a perfect wide reversed V, adding the extra
detail needed to make this image work.
An Iraqi youth dives into the Euphrates
river near Norias (water-wheels) or as called in Iraq ‘al-Nawaeer’ in Hit Iraq,
July 23, 2019. REUTERS/Khalid
al-Mousily
This is just a fun, uplifting picture that
makes me smile. Upturned faces and applauding hands lead you into the picture.
Then the bobbing orange balloons take you up and then back down to the sea of
smiling faces. If Njeri Mwangi had taken this image an instant later, cropping even
the tiniest sliver off the top balloon, the moment would have been destroyed.
Workers at the DusitD2 Hotel celebrate
during its reopening ceremony since its closure following an attack by Al
Shabaab-affiliated militant group that killed at least 21 people in Nairobi
Kenya, July 31, 2019. REUTERS/Njeri
Mwangi
Stunned migrants seem to stumble as they
come ashore after being rescued from a boat that had overturned, killing
dozens. It took me a while to understand why this image works so well. Then it
hit me. Ismail Zitouny has used a low camera angle and a slight tilt to the
horizon to create his effect. A sad and desperate scene that is out of step
with the beauty of the blue skies and the clear warm seas.
This, in terms of composition, is a very noisy
and messy picture. Your eye is grabbed by the green in the background and the
letters LET’S REP on the black t-shirt in the foreground. Your mind is desperately
trying to work out what it means. Half the word is missing, the woman in the
middle distance is looking into the camera and there is a truncated hand with bitten nails and old nail
varnish on the left. It’s then the noise turns to silence and you see the woman
saluting, her hand and face strong and still, held in silent respect.
A woman salutes during the funeral of
Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi in Tunis, Tunisia July 27, 2019. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi
