A Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa, June 7, 2019

The devastation of a mud slide is graphically illustrated in Newton Nambwaya’s striking picture. As far as the eye can see a brown gash of mud cuts down from the horizon, through the green trees, destroying and smothering all in its path. The woman in the foreground struggles through the mud, seemingly with little or no hope of achieving anything. This all seems slightly unreal. It was torrential rains that caused this mud slide, but the scene is now bathed in warm sunshine. 

A resident struggles through the destruction caused after a landslide rolled down the slopes of Mt Elgon through the Shisakali village in Bududa district, Uganda June 6, 2019.    REUTERS/Newton Nambwaya

Strong warm highlights and dark cold shadows in Khalil Ashawi’s bomb aftermath picture give us a real feel of the chaos of what is going on. It’s hard to work it out. Your eye is drawn immediately to the bright yellow and you spot the spray of water, or is it smoke? It’s then that you see the man with the jeans and white t-shirt, behind him another with the fire hose dousing the damaged vehicle. The ground, wet with water, reflects the light and the action. Slowly, the bystanders can be seen in the shadows on the right. They seem calm and used to all this. 

People try to extinguish a fire at the site of a car blast in Azaz, Syria, June 2, 2019.   REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

The overall shape of the police arriving at the scene is like a wave crashing on the beach, with a strong right-to-left diagonal formed by the line of their helmets. Then you get a sense of a strong undercurrent pulling back. I think it’s the position of their arms that give us this sense of back and forth motion. Take special notice of the man’s hand in the centre of the picture. He looks like a surfer in a powerful current trying to control the flow of the wave.

Israeli policemen gather as they aim their weapons during clashes with Palestinians on ‘Jerusalem Day’ on the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City June 2, 2019.   REUTERS/Ammar Awad

A cacophony of colour and line makes your eyes swirl around Afolabi Sotunde’s picture from Eid prayers. Finally, you are allowed to rest on the brand name Hello Kitty, to make this a terrific business news picture. Then, and only then, you see the fingers reaching to the edge of the frame. Imagine just how disappointing it would be if these were cropped off! To see more picture from Eid click here

Muslim sisters pray next to a Hello Kitty hand bag during the Eid al-fitr celebration in Abuja, Nigeria June 4, 2019.    REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

An affectionate and simple set of pictures by Abdullah Dhiaa Al-Deen looks at the tradition of buying new clothes to celebrate Eid. The black background and the relaxed poses draw attention to the varieties of clothing purchased. Abdullah is taking a break from news photography to bring us a visual surprise to enjoy. I have pulled them together as a combination so you can see a small selection.  

Ghufran Ali Kazim, 21, Zuhair Ramzy Khalil, 23 and Mariam Farouq Naji, 23, pose for pictures wearing clothes brought for the celebration of Eid al-Fitr in Kerbala, Iraq June 5, 2019.    REUTERS/Abdullah Dhiaa Al-Deen 

All colour has been choked out of Thaier Al-Sudani’s cityscape by the smoke from the chimneys. The image looks like it’s from a bygone era. A tiny figure is dwarfed by the chimney stacks and the extent of the pollution. It’s the vehicle on the right that snaps us out of this illusion that this is from the past. It’s happening right now. Read on here 

A general view of brick factories as smoke rises from the chimney stacks in Nahrawan in Baghdad, Iraq, June 3, 2019.    REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

All compositional lines in Azad Lashari’s picture lead to the fiery open mouth, from the torch itself, the line of the eyebrow, to the clothing of those watching. The yellow glow of the flame will be snuffed out in an instant as the worshipper closes his mouth, shutting off the oxygen to the flame. But the moment before that happens has been captured forever.  

A member of the Iraqi Muslims dervishes of Sufis, puts a torch of fire into his mouth as he takes part in a ritual during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Erbil, Iraq May 19, 2019.    REUTERS/Azad Lashari 

Like a Mondrian painting, this picture is made up of rectangular blocks, with the strong vertical lines of the telegraph poles intersecting the horizonal lines of the cables and breaking the image up into sections. A slab of solid back-lit black is counterweighted by the bright colours of the translucent flag held aloft. The picture structure feels like a loud drum beat. 

A Sudanese protester holds a national flag as he stands on a road barricade demanding that the country’s Transitional Military Council hand over power to civilians, in Khartoum, Sudan June 5, 2019.    REUTERS

A week in Pictures, Middle East and Africa, October 15, 2017

It appears to the rest of the world that Kenya is struggling as the two main political parties wrestle for power in the lead-up to a second election after the first was declared void. Baz Ratner’s pictures of a plus size fashion show was a visual antidote to the daily diet of bloody street clashes. There is sheer joy on the faces of the women as they walk the catwalk in the latest Kenya fashions. I love how the light of the show changes from a cool blue on the right to hot reds on the left and you can almost hear the booming music.

Models pose on the catwalk during a plus size fashion show in Nairobi, Kenya October 7, 2017.   REUTERS/Baz Ratner

If ever a picture needed the health and safety warning “don’t try this at home”, it must surely be Mohamed Abd El Ghany’s picture of Egyptian fans celebrating their team qualifying for the 2018 Word Cup Finals. You can image the conversation moments before ‘I’ve got an idea, let’s all spray flammable gases into the air in a crowd and set fire to it’. A bad idea resulting in a great picture. 

Egyptians celebrate their soccer team’s victory against Congo that qualifies Egypt for the 2018 World Cup, in Cairo, Egypt October 7, 2017.    REUTERS/ Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Libya-based photographer Hani Amara’s picture of migrants sent a chill down my spine. At first, all we see is dozens of people sitting in perfect rows in a fenced-off area. Then we notice that more people are joining their ranks on the right, peeling off in strict order. What we can’t see is how many more will join, but I get the sense that this line of human tragedy is endless.  

Migrants sit at a detention centre in Gharyan, Libya, October 12, 2017.

Even though Abdullah Dhiaa Al-deen’s picture was taken last August it was only published this week and so it qualifies to be included in pictures of the week (I set the rules anyway and they are there to be bent.) Abdullah worked on this in-depth story for weeks, and from the whole series I like this image the most. To me the calm and beauty of the scene seems as timeless as the turban is long. The delicate material held by the men draws you slowly into the picture towards the graceful arches, the eye pausing to take in the complexity of the floor’s design. The whole picture story, published on the Wider Image that can be seen here. 

A Shi’ite cleric holds a turban at al-sayed al-Yazdo school run by al-Hawza al-Ilmiyya in Najaf, Iraq August 12, 2017. For more than 1000 years the al-Hawza al-Ilmiyya in southern Baghdad has been giving religious instructions to thousands of Shi’ite Muslims to help them become clerics.   REUTERS/ Abdullah Dhiaa Al-deen

Most of the time I believe that a picture has a natural crop, which might be captured by the camera in the purist Cartier Bresson sense or might need to be cropped by an editor with an eye to bringing out the best. On rare occasions some pictures just need to be seen in two different ways. Baz Ratner’s image is one of these. You immediately ask yourself ‘what is going on here?’ Cropped wide you see a man in a car consumed by white gas, the colour of which matches the paintwork. The car, the man’s face and arms and the eerie shadow on the side all add to the bizarre nature of the image. But then you want to see the man’s face, with his eyes seeming to pop out of his head as he tries to escape the smoke, his hands flailing about. You choose which you prefer.  You can read the back story to Baz’s picture here.

An opposition politician of the National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition, reacts after a gas canister fired by police hits his car during a protest along a street in Nairobi, Kenya October 13, 2017.  REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Often the strongest pictures are made when objects are seen out of their usual context; a boat balanced on a building after a storm, a Rolls Royce in a swimming pool (it’s only Rock and Roll) and in this case Ange Aboa’s picture of a plane in the sea. What makes this picture even stronger is that the rescue is still going on. The man on the right of the picture desperately seems to call the viewer into the image to help with the rescue. The waves batter the stricken plane and crash in left to right, hampering the rescue. The wind so strong you can almost taste the salt water mixed with the spilled fuel of the plane.

People pull the wreckage of a propeller-engine cargo plane after it crashed into the sea near the international airport in Abidjan, Ivory Coast October 14, 2017.    REUTERS/Ange Aboa

Photographing a deadly bomb attack in Mogadishu is never easy. The constant danger of a secondary device targeting rescue workers and the fear that there may be a follow-up gunman attack means that you always have to be super careful. You also have to be mindful that you don’t produce pictures of such horror and gore that they are just un-publishable. Feisal Omar not only portrays the devastation of the scene -- fire, smoke, burning vehicles, wreckage and men carrying weapons -- but he also captures the human element of rescue and survival as the armed men carry the injured to safety. A very powerful news image.

Somali Armed Forces evacuate their injured colleague from the scene of an explosion in KM4 Street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia, October 14, 2017.   REUTERS/Feisal Omar

The simple oval composition to Thierry Gouegnon’s picture, aided by a pointing hand, draws you into the writing in the sand.  Immediately you are intrigued; what is going on and what is causing such intense scrutiny? A game of chance? A plan for some event? Nope, the Liberia election results as they are announced on the radio. A fantastic picture that to me sums up the struggles and hopes of one of the world’s poorest nations as they go to the polls. 

Supporters of George Weah, former soccer player and presidential candidate of Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), note on the ground presidential election results announced on the radio, in Monrovia, Liberia October 15, 2017.    REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon