A Week in Pictures, Middle East and Africa, February 7, 2020

Alaa al-Marjani has shot a picture that intrigues, with contradictions that unsettle what you’d naturally feel. Leaning back and looking relaxed as you are surrounded by flames is not the natural order, especially at a demonstration. The picture has been cleverly shot to give a realistic perspective of what is going on, the flaming tyres are either side of the protester. Had it been cropped to remove his legs and the background the image would have a completely different feel.  

An Iraqi demonstrator sits amid burning tires blocking a road during ongoing anti-government protests in Najaf, Iraq February 2, 2020.   REUTERS/Alaa al-Marjani

Prior to the game, videos of a fan threatening violence with weapons including, knives, blades, a hammer and a chisel circulated on social media, so it was no surprise when trouble erupted. Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah’s picture wonderfully depicts the scene of chaos as police surround players and the referee to protect them from attacks. I like the contrast between the players’ body language, which is quite relaxed while the tension in the faces of the police is obvious.

Sudanese riot police control soccer fans during a match between Sudanese team Al Hilal against Egypt’s Al Ahly in Group C of the African Champions League at the Al-Jawhara Stadium in Khartoum, Sudan February 1, 2020.   REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah 

With people crushed, squeezed and cramped from foreground to horizon, you feel the claustrophobia in Shorky Hussien’s picture illustrating the fact that Egypt’s population will hit 100 million in the next few days. What takes a little while to notice is that you can’t see a single man anywhere in the frame, and that is because it’s a women-only carriage. Read on here

Passengers board a train at the underground Al Shohadaa ‘Martyrs’ metro station in Cairo Egypt, January 29, 2020.   REUTERS/Shorky Hussien 

You can almost hear the echo of the steps of a mother and child in Philimon Bulawayo’s picture from inside a hospital. Although it looks quite a dark and gloomy place, the happy swing of the child’s bag gives it a warm feel. I can’t help but imagine hearing the chitter chatter of the child’s voice over the cold footsteps. 

A mother and child arrive for treatment at a local government hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe, February 4, 2020.   REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

Siphiwe Sibeko’s picture puts me in two minds. It’s about load-shedding (power cuts) in South Africa, and instinctively I really want to the crop out the cold blue light of the phone bottom left to leave us with the warm glow of the single light source of the candle. But the story is about the lack of power and this single electric light adds weight to illustrating the story. What do you think?  

Nokuthula Thwala looks on next to a candle during load shedding in Soweto, South Africa, February 2, 2020.    REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

It’s the touch of the man on the body that gives this image the empathy I was looking for in what otherwise could be unfairly interpreted as a utilitarian burial process. Everyone is precariously close to the grave, the digger still in it. The man on the right is holding the body’s head with his feet, seemingly to stop the body rolling into the grave. What really strikes me in Alaa al-Marjani’s image is the strong circular compositional line of the mourners that draws us anti-clockwise into the picture and down into the grave past the obvious and slightly disturbing shape of the body of the dead protester.   

Mourners gather around the body of a demonstrator who was killed at an anti-government protest overnight, during the funeral in Najaf, Iraq, February 6, 2020.   REUTERS/Alaa al-Marjani 

In Luc Gnago’s picture your eye is immediately drawn to the banner that is front and centre in the picture, because the eye loves to make sense of words in pictures. Cutting down the middle of the image is a post that should cut the image in two, but it doesn’t. The slight tilt and the words cutting across it prevents the post from dividing the picture in two. Once you have read it you are drawn into an image of ecstatic celebration, open-mouthed joy, big smiles and waving arms.  

Supporters of former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo watch his trial on screen in Abidjan Ivory Coast February 6, 2020. The banner reads ‘Gbagbo is coming, the reconciliation and peace too’.   REUTERS/Luc Gnago 

Temilade Adelaja’s picture just oozes warmth and affection even though it’s slightly messy shape, causing your eye to wander around. Smiling faces and a Tupperware presentation of food, the sagging sign ‘Veggie Victory’, and the roof supports all zoom you to the back of the frame, to the man tucking into his vegan food, yum. I like the daring crop of the woman on the right, right down the middle of her face, her one eye looking across seems to say to me ‘hurry up I want to get some food’. Read on here.

A woman serves herself to a plate of vegan food at a gathering for vegans in a restaurant in Lagos, Nigeria January 18, 2020.     REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja

I can’t decide if Satish Kumar’s picture reminds me more of the monster creation of Sid Philips, the boy next door in Toy Story or the sensuous character in Alex Garland’s sci-fi film Ex Machina.The robot is graceful in shape, its limbs extending out to conduct the orchestra. But the body then loses its grace as you look down towards the mechanics. Would it feel different and less graceful if the face was less feminine? Either way it’s a terrific picture of technology. See more here. 

A robot maestro leads an orchestra at the Sharjah Performing Arts Academy in Sharjah, UAE, January 31, 2020.   REUTERS/Satish Kumar

Mohamad Torokman’s picture at the protests is perfectly timed and perfectly shaped. The thrown rock is just far enough away from the arm to see it in flight yet close enough for it to be seen. The line of the wall and the smoke guide your eye to the action of the figure and his upturned masked face. The composition shapes and lines divide the image into the classic thirds. The richness and range of colour and tones also build the image giving it added depth; from the warm tones of the flames, the cool greys of the wall and skies to the dark shadows of the smoke.    

A Palestinian demonstrator hurls stones at Israeli forces as tires burn near the Israeli barrier during a protest against U.S President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan in the village of Bilin, in the Israeli-occupied west bank February 7, 2020.   REUTERS/Mohamed Torokman

A Week in Pictures, Middle East and Africa, August 30, 2019

At first glance Mohamed al-Sayaghi’s picture looks like the confused scene from some sort of blast or explosion, but it’s not. You are drawn into the image through the chaos, eyes searching out the focal point of the white flour sacks on the ground. Deeper into the image you make out the side of the truck, laden with dozens of sacks and then you finally see the men at work. They are disposing of sacks of flour that are considered expired or contaminated, in a country that faces areas of malnutrition.

Workers dispose of sacks of wheat, provided by the World Food Program (WFP), which is reportedly expired, on the outskirts of Sanaa, Yemen August 28, 2019.    REUTERS/ Mohamed al-Sayaghi

Mohammed Salem’s picture is divided in two by the classic shape of an AK47 rifle cutting diagonally through the image of the funeral cortege of a Hamas security force member. On the right, comrades stand to attention with calm respect either side of the body and  you can just see the dead man’s face. To the left people reach in to try to take pictures with mobile phones. A picture that reflects the confusion surrounding the death of this soldier in a bomb blast in Gaza, and that carries echoes of the internal division within Gaza. 

Members of Palestinian Hamas security forces carry the body of their comrade Salama Al-Nadeem during his funeral in Gaza City August 28, 2019.  REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Two days earlier Mohammed Salem was illustrating the power cuts that Gaza is facing. With an image that is almost totally black Mohammed teases with just enough detail to let the viewer know this is in a narrow street with people trying to go about their business. There is a hint of sky squeezed between darkened buildings. A distant figure walks through the only pool of light of the ground and a figure stands in a light that illuminates his face and arms as he chats with a friend who reaches out to him.   

Palestinians use their mobile phone torches during a power cut at the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, August 26, 2019.   REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

What is most striking about Khalid a-Mousily’s image is the uncertain look on the boy’s face on the left of the picture and how the composition of the image leads you back to him. Although initially you are quickly drawn away from his face by the visual noise of the red and white flowers, the grieving man on the right and the centrally placed man with his head in his hands, the flow and shape of the design takes you back to the boy. His face shows a mixture of emotion:  he’s confused, concerned and frightened at the same time.  

Relatives of Kazem Ali Mohssen, a brigade commander of the Popular Mobilisation Force, who was killed by an attack from an unmanned aircraft close to the Syrian border in Anbar, mourn during his funeral in Baghdad, Iraq August 26, 2019.     REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily

Alaa al-Marjani’s picture has a bittersweet feel to it. Every compositional point and edge has been slightly cropped off and I feel cheated as I instinctively want them in frame. The bottom edge and point of the woman’s dress is just out of frame, the decoration at the top of the image is neither in nor out, I even want the lines of the carpet to flow exactly into the corners of the frame, but they don’t. But what a wonderfully complex image this is, bold shapes of flat black tones arranged around the warmth of the rich brown doors; complex and beautiful gold and silver script all divided up in a classic thirds format and squeezed just in.    

An Iraqi woman is seen at the Imam Ali shrine at the holy Shi’ite city of Najaf, Iraq, August 23, 2109.   REUTERS/Alaa al-Marjani

A gentle visual smile from Thomas Mukoya as he illustrates the census in Kenya by using a mirror in one of the homes to double the number of people in the image. The illusion is a little harder to detect as the mirror line is not central. 

An enumerator uses a census laptop to record details of a family participating in the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya August 24, 2019.   EUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Underexposed, flare in the lense, no people in the image and very little colour. On paper,  Afolabi Sotunde’s picture should not work but it does. As part of a series of picture stories to mark the 400^th anniversary of the start of the slave trade from Africa to North America this intriguing image is from one of the many historic sites associated with the trade. Although it has a faint feeling of hope it is tinged with sadness. As your eye moves from the single, almost derelict hut and away from the line of trees under a cool sky you finally notice the gentle roll of the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Once you notice this you can almost hear the waves in the still air, giving you time to reflect on what happened here 400 years ago. You can see the full story here.   

A shrine is seen on a beach where thousands of African slaves were once loaded onto ship in the historic slave port of Ouidah, Benin, July 17, 2019.   REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

I can’t help feeling a little uncomfortable as it dawns on me that of Fawaz Salmon’s picture from Yemen has similarities with a picture of a big game hunter standing, foot on kill. Death, pride and destruction all captured in one frame. A fighter stands, foot on vehicle, as a fuel tanker with a burned-out cab burns in the background. At his feet a man holds up a two-finger salute of victory.

Southern separatist fighters patrol a road during clashes with government forces in Aden, Yemen, August 29, 2019.   REUTERS/Fawaz Salman

From the mists of time in my head comes the Flanders and Swann 1950’s Hippopotamus song “Mud! Mud! Glorious mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood” and I am delighted by Abdullah Rashid’s picture. Cool blues and greys take any heat from the picture as people enjoy the water and therapeutic muds of the Tigris River very much like the imaginary hippo cooling itself in the song. Go on Google it if you don’t know it, it will make you smile. 

People sit in water after being covered with mud, which is reported to help treat skin diseases, on the banks of the Tigris River west of Mosul, Iraq August 20, 2019.   REUTERS/Abdullah Rashid  

Ronen Zvulun’s image of a man playing with a dog has a very edgy feel to me. You can’t quite see what the dog - and that is a big dog - is jumping up to grab in its mouth. The  man looks just a little apprehensive, but still keeps tight hold on his can of beer. It is a party after all. This all set against a graffiti background where the slow shutter speed seems to blur the letters and the shadows so we can’t quite get a firm visual grip on the details. It’s taken Ronen many weeks of shooting to get this story together, hence the January date on this image, but now it is released you can see it all here.    

A man plays with a dog as a party takes place in a nearby basement, known as Strauss, that is occasionally used as a venue for underground parties in Jerusalem January 25, 2019.  REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

The best smile of the week has just got to Baz Ratner for this wonderfully affectionate picture from Mozambique as the country prepares for the Pope’s visit. You just can’t grab enough visual joy from this image fast enough, that friendly toothless smile, the warmth of the tones created by the evening sunlight, the fizz of the cloth texture, colour and patterns and the corridor of the Baobab trees that lead you off to the horizon. All combined it makes you just want to visit.   

A man rides on the back of a cart pulled by a bull though Baobab alley near the city of Morondava, Madagascar, August 30, 2019.    REUTERS/Baz Ratner