A Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa March 1, 2019

A last minute edition to this week's selection. Zohra Bensemra covered the clashes after Friday prayers in Algiers and produced a strong set of pictures moving from protesters viewpoint to that of the police. What I like most about this image is the simultaneous action of rock throwing by protesters and police seen through the haze of tear gas. The three protesters in the background are all captured at the different stages of rock throwing, pick up rock, aim, throw and run.

Anti-riot police clash with people protesting against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s plan to extend his 20-year rule by seeking a fifth term in April elections in Algiers, Algeria March 1, 2019.   REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

There is no getting away from the sense of urgency as people seem to struggle against overwhelming odds in Rodi Said’s picture. While the women try to escape the elements, the only glimmer of hope is the sun trying to break through the clouds, a scene played out against a backdrop that stretches to an infinity of emptiness. See the latest here

Women walk with their belongings near the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, Syria February 26, 2019.   REUTERS/Rodi Said

Sumaya Hisham is making a small visual joke in her picture. At first glance we think it’s South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa smiling at us as he emerges from a corrugated iron shack. We soon realise that it’s someone holding a poster.  Nice to see a little gentle but sophisticated fun in the election campaign. 

A young girl holds an election poster for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to Kkayelitsha township near Cape Town, South Africa, February 27, 2019.  REUTERS/Sumaya Hisham 

And while in a cheery mood, I can’t help adding a second picture from Sumaya from the same event. The colours, the warmth and the hand in on the left just jump out at me. This picture is so messy, with so many clashing colours, abstract and confusing shapes that it just should not work. But it does  

A woman holds an election poster for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to Kkayelitsha township near Cape Town, South Africa, February 27, 2019.  REUTERS/Sumaya Hisham

Senegal is also holding presidential elections and there was no lack of pictures that ooze colour and shape. It was not an easy choice, but Zohra Bensemra’s image has it all. So many bright colours vie for attention but the narrow depth of field draws your eye to the face in the foreground that is haloed in yellow cloth. You have to work hard to see the face, eyes down and with a gentle smile, but at the same time the viewer is being drawn back to the colours in the queue.

People wait to cast their vote at a polling station in Fatick, Senegal, during the presidential election February 24, 2018.  REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

A dramatic image from Feisal Omar, in which rescue workers carry an injured man from a burning building after a bomb attack. Feisal has achieved a balance in scale so the viewer can see the action of the injured being carried while at the same time keeping the context of the wider scene in the background. This was all shot at night, while the attack was going on, which is not easy to achieve at all. See the full story here 

Rescue workers evacuate an injured man from the scene where a suicide car bomb exploded targeting a hotel in a business centre at Maka Al Mukaram street in Mogadishu, Somalia, February 28, 2019.   REUTERS/Fesial Omar

It’s a little unclear why the police officer is pointing at the ballot paper with his baton in Afolabi Sotunde’s picture. Is he giving advice? Is he pointing out where to vote? Is he indicating where a voter had put their mark? What makes this image really work is the eyes of the man on the left and the compositional “W” shape and line that take us through the officer’ back, his arm and baton to the cast vote. This is all set against the cool colour of the duck egg background. 

A police officer points his baton at a ballot paper during their sorting at Giginyu Primary school in Kano, Nigeria February 23, 2019.    REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde 

Two images from Gaza scream from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. The first by Suhaib Salem shows a young girl crying at the funeral of one of her relatives killed during clashes. The girl holds a figure on the left who is just out of frame, a consoling hand from a woman with a stoic look on her face reaches out to touch her, but just falls short of the touch. Maybe the girl is inconsolable?   

A relative of Palestinian teenager Yousif al-Davyah, 15, who was killed at the Israel-Gaza border fence during a protest on Friday, mourns during his funeral in Gaza City February 23, 2019.   REUTERS/Suhaib Salem 

The second image, by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, shows sheer joy and relief on the woman’s face as she hugs her relative, knowing that he is alive, well and back at home. Her eyes are closed tight as she crushes him in a tight hug, her face pressed against his, feeling his closeness and breathing in his presence. The face on the right and the crowd on the left squeeze us into the image so we too feel the closeness of this moment.

A relative hugs a Palestinian Hamas member who went missing in Egypt with others a few years ago, after his arrival in Gaza City February 28, 2019.   REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Khaled Abdullah’s picture is a simple and striking half-length portrait of a girl in Yemen. The dark windows in the mud hut seem to echo her piecing look from within her niqab, her hand directing you to her eyes. What is most striking is the overwhelming sense of poverty, but it’s hard to pinpoint why we get this feeling. Is it the rough surface on the house in the background, the dust on her niqab, or the sun-bleached and torn clothing? Probably the combination of all three, but the caption confirms her poverty. She is in a camp for the displaced. 

A girl stands near a hut in an improvised camp for internally displaced people near Abs of the northwestern province of Haija, Yemen, February 18, 2019.   REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah 

Because I am interested in how we see pictures, I have added Thaier al-Sudani’s Friday prayers image. What do you see first? The shape and lines are quite regular but immediately you are drawn to the yellow shirt. Is it the combination of yellow and black, nature’s danger flag, think wasp or bee? Or is it that you can clearly see the word SPORTS? The mind’s eye always wants to read text and make sense of letters in pictures. Or did your eye jump to the complementary colours of red and green, bottom left? And how long does it take you to see the man in wheelchair as your eye darts around the image? Lastly, did you see the boy standing up, his hand to his mouth? 

Supporters of Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attend Friday prayers in Baghdad’s Sadr City, March 1, 2019.   REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani

Middle East and Africa Pictures of the Week August 13, 2017

This is a collection of pictures that caught my eye from the Middle East and Africa this week. I chose them for a variety of reasons -- a captured moment, something that made me pause for thought, great design , great light or even something that simply made me smile.  These are not necessarily the top news pictures of the week but may have slipped by largely unnoticed in the tsunami of news from the region.

Rival demonstrations took place as the decision was made on whether a vote of confidence in President Zuma should be a secret ballot. Hundreds took to the streets and Mike Hutchings darted between opposing rallies. Using a long lens,  Mike filed this picture to show the number of people present, a good picture in its own right. But a crop bought the cut-out caricature image of Zuma from the background, where it was ‘hidden’ by the signs saying ‘the truth will set you free’ and ‘Woodstock’, to the foreground.

Anti-Zuma protesters, civil society groups and faith communities march against President Zuma, in Cape Town, South Africa August 7, 2017.   REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

Queues of Kenyan voters snake from left to right as they wait to cast their votes in the early morning.  I love the order of the lines, where people stand with almost equal personal space between them. But what I like most is that the order breaks down and the line meanders about. A picture of ordered calm where chaos and violence is feared.

People queue outside a polling station in Nairobi Kenya waiting to cast their vote during the national election August 8, 2017.  REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

 Showing the horror of a death during a riot is never easy. You need to show enough of the body to ensure the news is covered but not so much of the horror that it either offends viewers or removes all dignity from the victim. Thomas Mukoya’s picture of a woman reacting to a death during clashes after the Kenyan election does just that. You can almost hear the screams from her contorted face, your eye led immediately from her mouth and up from the corner of the picture along the line of the edge of the building to the slumped body on the ground. There is enough depth of field so you can see the shape of the body but not so much that the focus is on death. This picture is the reaction of the living to the sight of death.

A woman screams and gestures as she mourns the death of a protester in Mathare, In Nairobi, Kenya, August 9, 2017.   REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Often it’s the unexpected that catches the eye. Images from the battle for Raqqa would could be expected to show monochrome destruction and violence and we have plenty of them on the wire. Zohra Bensemra’s affectionate portrait of a YPG fighter taking a selfie in a relaxed moment is an antidote to the violence. A bright yellow hat band is almost perfectly matched in colour and tone with graffiti on the wall. The reds, greens and blues, and black and white lines of graffiti dancing like an abstract painting, but that could be because I cannot read the Arabic text. What is nicest for me in this array of colour is that the young soldier is as relaxed as if she is doing a picture of her new hat at the Royal Ascot races and not in the battle torn streets of Raqqa.

A People Protection Unit (YPG) fighter takes a selfie in the old city of Raqqa, Syria August 9, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

It would be easy to think this is a still from a movie. It’s not. Mohamed Torokman’s picture is perfect in its screen-like composition, red flames and black smoke highlighting the soldier, sunlight catching his face and hands as he aims his rifle. If the solder was a little to the right or left or the flames a little lower this picture would not work. All the dark green of the uniform and black smoke would kill the shape. What can’t be seen in this picture are protesters who are hurling rocks at him during clashes at the West Bank. 

An Israeli soldier walks points his weapon toward Palestinian protesters during clashes in the West Bank village of Kofr Qadom near Nablus August 11, 2017.  REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Sometimes you get so pent up and angry when you are trying to make a point or get yourself understood you just want to scream. I think Afolabi Sotunde’s picture captures that very moment, a simple and direct portrait but full of emotion about to burst.

Supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari rally at the Unity Fountain in support of his Administration in Abuja, Nigeria August 11, 2017.   REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

The strength of this image is that it is almost abstract; it could be easily missed as it takes time to understand what is going on. The fact that Zohra Bensemra has taken the visual risk to transmit a picture that is so unexpected and very different, from a war zone, can only be admired. After the dark shadow on the left the first thing you see is the pink object, a water tap, itself somewhat unexpected. Then you begin to see the running water, its shadow and the stains on the wall. Soon the image that initially looked abstract takes form. 

The shadow of an internally displaced girl who fled Raqqa is cast at a water point at a camp in Ain Issa, north of Raqqa, Syria August 12, 2017.   REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra