A Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa, June 14, 2019

Light streaming through holes into a smoke-filled workshop is going to work as a picture every time. What Mohammed Salem has done is to show a worker walking through the rays of light, the timing perfect so the beams of light don’t cut across his face. Enjoy this peaceful, calm image of daily toil.    

A Palestinian worker carries clay pots as sun rays penetrate through the ceiling of a pottery workshop in Gaza City June 11, 2019.   REUTERS/Mohammed Salem 

In complete contrast of mood, but taken on the same day as Mohamed’s picture above, the grief in Ibraheem Abu Mustafa’s picture crashes into your consciousness and leaves you with a feeling of desperation and sadness. The boy’s hand tenderly touches his dead father’s face as he looks down weeping and distraught, his other hand gripped tight in tension as he is lifted above the chaos of the funeral. We can only guess at the feelings going through the boy’s mind, but this sad and powerful moment is captured forever.  

The son of Palestinian paramedic Mohamed Al-Judaily, who died of wounds he sustained during a protest at the Israeli-Gaza border fence, reacts as he looks at his father’s body during his funeral in the central Gaza strip, June 11, 2019.   REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

I won’t attempt to lift the spirits after Ibraheem’s picture but will bombard you with more distressing news and raise an ethical issue with an image from the same day as those above. A village in Mali was attacked, with the death toll ranging from 35 to nearly 100 depending on who was citing the numbers. What was agreed is that more than 20 children were killed. We have images of the dismembered and charred bodies but they are considered too distressing to publish. To give a sense of the death and destruction we published this poignant image below, the dead body of a thin farm animal, ashes all that is left of building. You get a sense of what happened without being exposed to the grisly images of dead people. It’s always hard to decide what should be seen in such instances – after all, who wants to see dead children? Or is this a case that calls for “seeing is believing” and for the publication of the images? I think not. Read on here 

A dead animal is seen amidst the damage at the site of an attack on the Dogon village of Sobane Da, Mali June 11, 2019.    REUTERS/Malick Konate

A very nicely seen image by Baz Ratner at a mock funeral by environmental activists. You eye is drawn quickly to the clever black and white logo pasted on a fake black coffin. The only real colour of the image, the red of the protester’s nail varnish, holds g our attention. Your eye then moves right in the frame to see her masked face, her eyes serious as she carries her message.  

Greenpeace environmental activist carries a fake coffin during a protest against the construction of a coal fired electricity plant in Lamu on Kenya’s coast, during a protest in Nairobi, June 12, 2019.    REUTERS/Baz Ratner  

I am a big fan of simple shapes and strong lines in composition. Add a strong red colour with a hint of complementary green and the sound of a military band, as Afolabi Sotunde has done, and he hits all the right buttons. If I was after perfection I would have liked a little more space on the top right, so the arm of the leading soldier pointed into the corner of the frame and we would not crop off the small figure, also in green on the right.

Police officers are seen on parade during the new Democracy Day, a national holiday in honour of late M.K.O Abiola, in Abuja, Nigeria, June 12, 2019.  REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

Samuel Mambo’s picture structure is all about sharp edges and it has an eerie feel to it. The clean corner of the wall, the strong wide V-shape line of the path, the white highlights of the workers’ clothing against the background shadows and, if you look carefully, the fold lines in the newly opened aprons of the medical staff. Staff are getting ready to fight Ebola. The uneasy feeling is created by compositionally awkward position of the figures in the chopped-up space and the man’s gloved hands that are clasped together, giving the image a pensive feel. Read on here 

Ugandan medical staff are seen as they inspect the Ebola preparedness facilities at the Bwera General Hospital near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo in Bwera, Uganda, June 12, 2019.   REUTERS/Samuel Mambo 

A week in Pictures Middle East & Africa December 8, 2017

Clashes erupted in the region after US President Donald Trump’s announcement to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Mohamed Torokman’s picture is as much about the US flag being in tatters as it’s about clashes, for me symbolising the almost global condemnation of this decision. The figure reaching down, their hand creates a moment’s tension between dark shapes and the skies that leads us down into the flames of the picture with what I feel is a growing sense of unease. Click here to see a gallery of images for the clashes. 

A Palestinian protester prepares to burn a U.S flag during clashes with Israeli tropps at a protest against U.S President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West bank city of Ramallah, December 7, 2017.   REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

It would be quite easy to scroll quickly past images of a funeral from the West Bank, they are, after all, not rare; but I never do. I take time to look at them all. I study the faces of the dead and the faces of those mourning. Sometimes I am captured by a picture’s moment and transported to the funeral. For me Abed Omar Qusini’s picture is one such example. The harsh light picks out the face of the pallbearer, the angst on his face obvious, the hand then points you back to the dead from the shadows. You are led back along the red, white and green of the flag into the shadows of the crowd of mourners, who are slowly shuffling from right to left. Then, caught in the light on the far left, a surprise, a new life. 

Mourners carry the body of Palestinian man Mahmoud Odah during his funeral in the West bank village of Qusrah December 2, 2017.   REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini

Walking slowly through the dust created by a shelling a boy rubs his face in a picture almost entirely drained of colour. I could have chosen images of the dead being dug out of rubble or the injured being carried but this picture by Bassam Khabieh, for me, portrays a feeling of exhaustion, loneliness and isolation, for me a visual interpretation of the rebel held enclave of Ghouta.

A boy is seen during shelling in the town of Hamoria, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria, December 3, 2017. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

A striking portrait of a man accused of being an ISIS bomber is seen through a complex web of vertical and horizontal black lines and shadows created by the cell bars. What for me really makes Muhammad Hamed’s image very intriguing are the dark and shadowy figures that surround the man who stands in strong side light looking directly at you. Is this the face of a member of an organisation that has created so much fear, destruction and terror or is he innocent and wrongly accused? The alleged crime; setting off a car bomb that killed six people and injured many others in a refugee camp on the Jordan Syria border.

Five Syrians, accused of facilitating the Rukban bombings in June 2016, react during their trial at the state Security Court in Amman, Jordan, December 4, 2017.  REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

In a scene that looks like something created in Hollywood Thaier al-Sudani captures a wonderful business as key members of the Iraqi government meet with Russian oil magnates. All suited and booted they walk as if in carnival parade, their matching white helmets and red lanyards making them appear like soldiers, a troupe of dancers or victorious members of a football team leaving the field of play. A question I have; is the man on the left very tall or is his size an optical illusion? If he is in the foreground why does the man on the right appear smaller than him? If you look at the man on the right his feet he is nearer to the photographer and therefore should appear bigger? I let you think about that.

Iraqi Oil Minister Jaber al-Luaibi and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Dyukov, head of the Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft walk during a tour of the Badra oilfield in Kut province, Iraq December 6, 2017.   REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani

In Amr Abdallah Dalsh’s football picture I think we all know what is being thought by the sportsmen in the picture; Emilano thinking ‘Please no! Please! Please no! And the referee Malang is thinking ‘No chance son, I’m not interested, move along here’. The picture is perfectly timed, the praying hands, the one eye wide open staring past the hand that lifts the whistle that’s just about to touch the referee’s lips. Wonderful and no doubt a microsecond later the shrill sound of the whistle and the moment, that Amr has frozen in time, broken.

Auckland City’s Emilano Tade appeals a decision by referee Malang Diedhiou durng their Cup World Cup match against Al Jazira in Al Ain City in United Arab Emirates December 6, 2017.   REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

 Something that never fails to intrigue me is how a small part of a picture can change the feel of an image as a whole. In Mohammed Al-Sayaghis picture of fighters attending a funeral we first look at a scene of men brandishing their weapons and shouting, what we can assume, are slogans of retribution and oaths of undying revenge for their fallen comrade in front of a mosque, an angry and aggressive picture. What softens the mood is the man on the right doing a selfie. It seems to me that he is not capturing the funeral for prosperity, historical documentary or potential propaganda; he is capturing himself, for himself. 

Houthi fighters attend the funeral of their comrades who were killed during the recent clashes in Sanaa, Yemen December 7, 2017.   REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Sayaghi

Although taken last March but only published this week as part of a special report is would be hard for me not to include Luc Gnago's picture of what appears to be two men on a white cloud looking at darken clouds in the skies. Personally I might have been tempted to crop it to remove the brown earth at the bottom of the frame, but the dark tone does help to balance the composition against the dark skies. Either way a fun and gentle image. Click here to see the rest of Luc's pictures and the special report about Monsanto. 

Farmers work in a cotton market in Soungalodaga village near Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso March 8, 2017.   REUTERS/Luc Gnago