A Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa April 19, 2019

Look at me! Listen to my protest! is the message from this picture from Sudan. The flame licking into the half-light of the evening highlights the protester’s glasses and open mouth so that he takes on the momentary appearance of a fire-breathing dragon. Once your eyes get used to the bright light of the flame you can see the thousands of protesters in the background, stretching into the horizon of the evening gloom. 

A Sudanese demonstrator chants slogan as he attends a sit-in protest outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, Sudan April 14, 2019.    REUTERS

A big, fun yellow picture, a big smile, curls of hair and hands emerging from a mist of yellow powder. The only other real colour is the red mask guiding us to the laughing eyes of the person on the right. There is no way you can look at this picture without feeling the warmth of a smile.    

A girl is covered in yellow powder during Egypt’s first Colour Run in Giza Egypt April 13, 2019.    REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany 

Ali Hashisho’s picture has a feeling of a post-apocalyptic scene as three unidentified figures stand framed in a ruined building, looking across a cityscape at storm clouds in the distance. Are they gathering or clearing? The dash of warm sunlight on the broken concrete pillar to the left gives us some hope.   

Children stand together inside a damaged house in Kobani, Syria April 3, 2019.   REUTERS/Ali Hashisho 

Omar Sanadiki’s pictures need a little text to help explain them. On the face of it, we see ruined buildings with vegetation. So what? Now understand that this peaceful verdant scene was recently the scene of fierce fighting in Aleppo, Syria. I include two images from Omar, because the pictures need some explanation. The most colourful image, with reds and yellows, just does not have enough buildings to illustrate the context of the story. So much for the adage ‘a picture paints a thousand words’. Read on here.  

Blossomed vegetation is seen over damaged buildings and the ancient citadel during a warm day of spring in the old city of Aleppo, Syria April 9, 2019.   REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

Poppies are seen in full bloom during spring in Aleppo governorate, Syria April 14, 2019.   REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

What a wonderful picture by Umit Bektas as he plays with scale and space. Almost a silhouette, but thankfully not. Your eye is drawn quickly to the figures in the trees, a flag extended as it is waved back and forth. These men look far too big to be safely in the tree, and maybe this sense is created by the open space above them or the line of figures beneath them. See more from Sudan here

Sudanese demonstrators wave a flag after climbing a tree outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, Sudan April 16, 2019.   REUTERS/Umit Bektas 

It’s just a lot of fun, people hugging, laughing and enjoying a moment perfectly captured by Luc Gnago as Ivanka Trumps visits Ivory Coast amid a myriad of dancing shapes, colours, stripes, patterns and smiles. Normally these visits are very stiff and formal but this breaks the mould. 

White House advisor Ivanka Trump dances as she meets women entrepreneurs, at the demonstration cocoa farm in Adzope, Ivory Coast, April 17, 2019.   REUTERS/Luc Gnago

Baz Ratner’s image is a little unsettling. I think the obvious reason is the figure wearing full bio protective gear walking behind the woman and the child seemingly unnoticed. What can be going on that this this gear is needed but there is a child unprotected? This then brings you to the full-on eye contact from both the woman and the child. You are drawn into the picture and it’s then you begin to notice that the only natural elements in this image are the uncovered faces. Plastic gloves, plastic clothing, plastic mask, plastic background and plastic fencing in the foreground. It all feels very unnatural and in this environment you are captivated by the eye contact, and that is unsettling. Why aren’t these people protected too?  Read on here to discover the story of those who survived Ebola caring for children with the killer disease.      

Mwamini Kahindo, an Ebola survivor working as a carer to babies who are confirmed Ebola cases, holds a child outside the red zone of the Ebola treatment centre in Butembo, Democratic Republic of Congo, March 25, 2019.    REUTERS/Baz Ratner   

To describe Mohamed Abd Al Ghany’s picture of an old book as lush - very rich and providing great sensory pleasure - might be a step too far but it’s the word I kept coming back to when looking at this detail picture. The warm tones of the aged pages, wrinkled with time, make us want to touch the book. The clever crop, so you can’t see all the book, ensures we spend time looking at the ancient text, which is quite exquisite. You can see more artefacts and the restoration project here.   

‘Codex Syriacus’, an ancient copy of the Gospels in Syriac, is seen on display in St. Catherine’s Monastery in South Sinai, Egypt, March 7, 2019.  REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany 

Hard to ignore the wonderful beam of light in Ammar Awad’s picture of clergy during Holy Week in Jerusalem. Equally hard to ignore is the candle-lit procession of worshippers in the Holy City. These pictures really speak for themselves so I will let them do just that.       

Members of the clergy take part in the Catholic Washing of the Feet ceremony on Easter Holy Week in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2019.   REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Worshippers take part in a procession during the Catholic Washing of the Feet ceremony on Easter Holy Week in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2019.   REUTERS/Ammar Awad

A Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa July 27, 2018

I just needed to add Mohamed Abd El Ghany’s star spangled picture of the 'Blood Moon'. What I like so much about this is that Mohamed has approached this differently know that there would be many images of the moon in its red state through out the region. By using a long exposure and tripod he has put the lunar eclipse in the context of the cosmos and man. I feel this drives home just how small we look with our little electric light and digital technology. See more lunar eclipse pictures here

A Man takes pictures during the ‘Blood Moon’ lunar eclipse in the desert of Al Fayoum Governorate, south west of Cairo, Egypt July 27, 2018.   REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Baz Ratner’s picture of people watching as slum homes are destroyed to make way for a road has a slightly uncomfortable yet familiar feel to it. How often have you peered through fencing to watch construction work, or those of you who have toddlers would have more than likely entertained them with a trip to look at the ‘diggers’ and ‘workmen’. Although a very busy and complex image we are drawn into it from the strong dark tones in the foreground, through to the centrally placed figures wearing red in the middle ground up to the hazy distance of a mechanical digger tearing at the makeshift buildings in the dust. What is slightly uncomfortable is that this is the destruction of the homes of some of the poorest in the city. Read on here.

Onlookers watch as bulldozers demolish houses to make way for a new road in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, July 23, 2018.   REUTERS/Baz Ratner

The only way to describe Luc Gnago’s picture from the bus station in Mali is an explosion of light and colour. I am excited and exhausted as my eye races around this busy scene. Any colour you like is there. I so want to be there in the hustle and bustle, and I am not even worried by his shadow cast on the back of the green minibus or is that the shadow of the woman with the sack on her head? 

People hurry as they move to and from mini buses at the bus station in the evening light in Bamako, Mali, July 24, 2018.    REUTERS/Luc Gnago

I can’t help but think of the sun-dried bones of a prehistoric dinosaur when looking at the building in Tiksa Negri’s picture from Eritrea. I like the beauty and magnificence of the building destroyed by conflict and baked for years by the sun. It’s the same heat that the person carrying a table is sheltering from.  

A man carries a table as he walks past the ruins of a building in the port city of Massawa, Eritrea July 22. 2018.   REUTERS/Tiksa Negri

What is exciting is that we are now getting pictures out of Eritrea after years of no access. I love the pool of light which draws the viewer straight to the figures crossing the road silhouetted by the single car heading towards us. I sense that Tiksa Negri’s night street scene picture is really quite illustrative of the issues confronting the country and the capital, Asmara. The fact that the streets are hardly lit demonstrates the extent of the poverty the country is facing. 

An Eritrean couple walk along a street at night in Asmara, Eritrea July 21, 2018.   REUTERS/Tiksa Negri

In very much the same vein as the picture above, a small detail in a wide, even-toned space will catch your eye and you will look closely into it. With Ammar Awad’s powerful picture of a warplane in an attack dive you need to study it even more closely. Only then will you spot the two bombs released from the aircraft - destruction and possible death only seconds away.  

A warplane carries out a bombing run above Syria near the Israeli-Syrian border as seen from the Israeli-occupied Golan heights Israel, July 24, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

The strong light and the shallow depth of field in Suhaib Salem’s picture create an almost abstract swirl of body shapes, faces and hands that finally draws you to the face of the grieving woman. Once your eye settles on her, you look deeper into the grief. Her arms are tightly wrapped around the man, squeezing hard. It’s then you notice the hand from the almost invisible woman standing passively on the left, fingers digging into her brow, we assume, trying to rub her grief away.   

Relatives of Palestinian militant Abu Dakah, 31, who was killed in an Israeli strike, mourn during his funeral in Khan Younis in the Southern Gaza strip July 21, 2018.   REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

One normally associates the rainbow colours with LGBT and gay rights demonstrations, but not so in Corinna Kern’s haunting picture. Most colour has been taken out of the image as Corinna shoots through a transparent banner that has Netanyahu’s face printed on it. The image has the look of video frozen in transition as you fade from one sequence to the next. 

Israeli national flags can be seen through a banner with a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a LGBT community members protest against the discriminatory surrogate bill in Tel Aviv, Israel July 22, 2018.   REUTERS/Corinna Kern

Strong colours, strong lines of design and a flow and counter flow all balance in Siphiwe Sibeko’s picture to make you feel like you are on a powerful tide of people moving from left to right and back again. Everyone is looking from right to left in this picture, their arms all leading in the same direction, a seething mass of people. But the main figure looks in the opposite direction, her face held motionless in the strong light. She seems to be beckoning to the army of people from Zimbabwe: Onwards, onwards!    

Supporters of Zimbabwe’s opposition party attend a rally in Chitungwiza, outside the capital Harare, Zimbabwe, July 26, 2018.   REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

The inclusion of a second picture from the same story by the same photographer is rare in my weekly round-up, but I cannot resist the grace and beauty of the hands, fingers, eyes and colours in Luc Gnago’s wonderful picture of supporters at a political rally. You are immediately smitten with the beauty of the woman in profile with the red head scarf. You then feel as if you are in a complex and delicate dance that involves half glances of eyes through veils that finger and hand movements momentarily reveal. Count the number of eyes you can see but where you can’t see the full face; include in that count the posters too and you will maybe understand how I got this impression. Read on here.

Supporters of candidate Aliou Diallo, leader of the Democratic Alliance for Peace (Alliance Democratique pour la paix, or ADP-MALIBA) Party, attend an election rally in Bamako, Mali, July 26, 2018.   REUTERS/Luc Gnago

Amr Abdullah Dalsh uses the simple technique of back focusing that draws you immediately to the point of the picture, a portrait of a son. The ugly top stark lighting in the room not only highlights the picture in the black frame against a white wall but also darkens the eyes of the parents as they recount their story of their arrested son. The mood is very somber. Shawkan, their son, faces the death penalty. Read on here.

A photograph of jailed Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as ‘Shawkan’ is seen behind his parents at their home in Cairo, Egypt July 19, 2018.   REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

A Week in Pictures, Middle East & Africa November 24, 2017

Relatively late in the day on Friday Siphiwe Sebeko filed this picture of a supporter at the inauguration of Zimbabwe's new president. that I wanted to include it as an update. At first look it's a wide picture of a supporter in a crowd holding a banner that says 'Thank you Zimbabwe'. I could not resist cropping this to bring out what I really like in this picture, the sea of faces in the banner that almost matches the sea of faces in the crowd. As a foot note to my thinking; had I left it as a tighter cropped horizontal (as I wanted to) I felt the red shirt of the man on the right would have been too much of a distraction. Agree? 

Locals celebrate after the swearing in of Zimbabwe's new president Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare, Zimbabwe, November 24, 2017.   REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko 

Good pictures of people waiting for something to happen are hard to shoot. People are not doing anything, just waiting. But that in itself presents an opportunity, translating a long period of quiet and calm into something visual can produce powerful pictures that ooze tension, apprehension, anticipation, hope, longing and boredom. Both Ibraheem Abu Mustafa and Suhaib Salem, in my opinion, have achieved just that.

Palestinians wait for relatives to cross into Gaza, after Rafah border crossing was opened under the control of the western-backed Palestinian Authority for the first time since 2007 in Rafah in the southern Gaza strip November 19, 2017.   REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Palestinians wait for travel permits to cross into Egypt after Rafah border crossing was opened under the control of the western-backed Palestinian Authority for the first time since 2007 in Rafah in the southern Gaza strip November 19, 2017.   REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Again a disturbing image of an injured child needs to be seen, as the story of the besieged town of Douma in Syria unfolds. It’s not the injured arm that disturbs me in Bassam Khabeih’s picture, but the sheer terror in the child’s face. That fear is accentuated by the light reflected in his eye, while his tense and open mouth fight for your immediate attention with the blood on the white table. The strong diagonals of the line of the wall and the markings on the floor draw you back in, not allowing you to look away.

A wounded child is seen lying in Douma hospital after heavy shelling in the rebel-held besieged town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria November 19, 2017.    REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

You can almost taste the tension in Philimon Bulawayo’s picture as Robert Mugabe fails to announce his expected resignation in a live television broadcast. You don’t need a caption to tell you what the men are talking about as your eye dances around the greens, reds and blues of the bar’s lighting that create negative and positive shapes formed by the men’s profiles and their incredulous lips.

People talk as they watch television in a bar in Harare Zimbabwe as Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe addresses the nation November 19, 2017.    REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

Not many know there was a stampede of people in Morocco when food aid was being distributed. Fifteen people were killed. Youssef Boudlal’s picture of grieving relatives is a haunting reminder of this easily ignored tragedy. As a viewer, I am not sure if the women are hiding from the camera or grieving, I suspect both. For me, the strength of this picture is the small boy who peering around from the back of the woman who is staring into space. His presence, like the news of the deaths at the stampede, is easily missed.

Relatives mourn the death of Lakbira Essabiry, one of the people who were killed when a stampeded broke out in the south western Moroccan town of Sidi Boulaalam as food aid was being distributed in a market, in Sidi Boulaalam, Morocco November 20, 2017.   REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

 A bible-holding supporter of President Kenyatta screams into the air with joy, as people celebrate the news that a court had upheld his re-election. The relief on the faces of these people in Baz Ratner’s picture is so powerful that the visual noise of the yellow line, white pillars and railings don’t destroy the image. A close look reveals that the bible is open at Kings 2, Chapter 12, ‘Joash repairs the Temple’. I hope that rebuilding is the theme of the presidency after all the clashes.

Jubilee party supporters cheers after Kenya’s Supreme Court upheld the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta in last month’s repeat presidential vote in Nairobi, Kenya, November 20, 2017.   REUTERS/Baz Ratner

I have little secret, I love good pictures that illustrate business stories especially when they are about commodities. Mining, oil pictures from drilling to the global impact of price changes, and agriculture are particular favourites. So how could I resist Khalid al-Mousily’s symmetrical picture of a small mountain of sugar in Iraq, a man in black striding purposefully towards it. A picture with great shape that jumps out at you and can be used well on any platform, from a small screen on a mobile device or as a double-page spread in a magazine, or on an advertising hoarding in the street.  

An employee checks raw sugar at a sugar refinery in the city of Hilla, Iraq, November 21, 2017.   REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily

Amid the euphoria of Zimbabwe it would be easy to forget the crisis in Yemen, if only for a day. But there is no respite as Khaled Abdullah’s picture brings our minds quickly back to what is going on. It’s hard to tell the age of the person with thin and fragile legs until you realise that this helpless child is so tiny that he is on a set of scales designed for weighing babies. For me, the fact that you do not see the face of this malnourished boy gives a sense of the wider issue of hunger created by conflict in Yemen, and not just one person’s story.  

A boy lies on a weighing scale at a malnutrition treatment centre in Sanaa, Yemen, November 22, 2017.   REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah 

Almost a week of rising tension in Zimbabwe ended in an explosion of joy, relief, all night parties and smiling faces after fears that the transition of power from Mugabe would be bloody proved unfounded. Hard to chose one picture from Mike Hutchings but I think the frame full of smiling faces is a winner for me. I wish I was there. Have a look at more pictures here to lift your spirits.

Zimbabweans celebrate after President Robert Mugabe resigns in Harare, Zimbabwe November 21, 2017.  REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

One might not immediately think of Libya in terms of sun, sea, sand and … motorbikes.  So it’s therefore impossible to not include Ahmed Jadallah’s simple but affectionate picture of bikers, some of whom belong to the ‘Monsters’ group, on a Libyan beach. Although the picture was taken a while ago I’ve included in this week’s round-up as it was only published this week. You can read on here.

Members of the Tripoli bikers group ride their motorbikes at the beach in Tripoli, Libya November 4, 2017.  REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

Week in Pictures Middle East and Africa August 27, 2017

A personal selection of what has caught my eye and why from the file this week

A new front opened up in Iraq as government troops supported by Shi’ite Popular Mobilization forces started to try to retake Tal Afar from Islamic State. I really like the strong composition of this picture. The eye is led from the flags in the foreground through the picture by a strong reversed S shape as armoured vehicles make their way through the dust to the distant battle front.

 Shi’ite Popular Mobilization forces (PMF) gather with the Iraqi army on the outskirts of Tal Afar, Iraq, August 22, 2017.  REUTERS

Very much on the theme of strong composition driving an image, I am drawn to this stark, grey picture from an oil refinery in Bahrain. It works well for me because the lines of the picture lead you to people who are so small in the frame that without this visual aid they’d be almost invisible. The notion of people going for an evening stroll among the refinery pipelines lifts this picture from something that would be quite inanimate to something much more intriguing.

Residents are seen taking an evening walk near the petroleum pipelines of fuel storage tanks of State-owned Bahrain Petroleum Co (Bapco) refinery in Ma’ameer village south of Manama, Bahrain, August 22, 2017.   REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

 Dust consumes the whole of Omar Sanadiki’s picture, flattening it to a monochromatic relief after a Hezbollah tank fires, giving the landscape a space-like appearance. I can’t help thinking about the storm scene in the film The Martian, the figures battling against the dust cloud. What adds to this impression for me is the almost clumsy slow motion steps of the soldiers and the lumbering alien look and feel of the armoured vehicle; we can’t quite make out the classic ‘tank’ shape through the dust and backlight, but we know it’s there.

Hezbollah fighters walks near a military tank in the western Qalamoun, Syria, August 23, 2017.      REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

I think detail pictures are often some of the most revealing images from a sequenced picture story. A close-up of an item can explain so much when we can see every detail. Akintunde Akinleye’s well-observed picture of a money changer’s tools of the trade is one such case. To me this picture speaks of poverty but a determination to create wealth through trade. Old and well thumbed notes are displayed on a very grubby plastic table top. The coins that look like they may have been cast in a previous millennium are  scattered about or piled neatly, no doubt according to their value. Lastly, the digital calculator, which is probably used to haggle and squeeze the exchange rates, is left on a pot of items that make no sense to me at all. The padlock is unlocked and  the money box open and ready for business. Just from these small details I feel I can almost see the face of the money trader – can you?

Old Nigerian currency is seen on a ‘carpet’ in a local exchange shop in the old district of Nigeria’s northern city of Kano, August 24, 2017.   REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

It would be wrong to avoid including images from Yemen of victims being dug out of a housing complex after an air raid. Again we have to struggle with the topic of showing the effects of war on civilians, especially children. The pictures shot by Khaled Abdullah are as powerful as they are distressing and as a professional news photographer working in a conflict zone he is careful to photograph all he sees to tell the story fairly and honestly. He presents the most brutal images of dead children, their faces crushed, their broken bodies covered in dust, being carried away by rescue workers, alongside pictures of a general view of mechanical earth movers operating around the destroyed building. Editors must be given all this content so they can choose what to publish, telling the news but treating their readers with understanding. My view is that these images of death in conflict should be published, but in an honest, factual and non-sensationalist way, and with no hiding from what is going on. At the same time they should never be gratuitous and should always display humanity. I believe that it’s the first glimpsed moment of a picture that is burned into the mind forever. Publishers, and anyone who uses social media -- Twitter, Instagram or Facebook -- is now a publisher and should shoulder this responsibility. For myself, I added a notice of graphic content to this post giving the reader the choice to see or not to see, to know or not to know. I have also left on the graphic content warning on the caption that our clients see too. You may disagree, believing that all should be seen, thrown into the reader’s face, those images burned into the mind forever, and I have failed to show the real brutality what is happening. In the picture I have chosen the child is alive but injured, the rescuers’ body language offering hope. Others may feel that what I have posted is itself gratuitous, after all who wants to see pictures of injured children? Khaled followed up on this girl's story and it can been seen here - GRAPHIC CONTENT.

A man carries an injured girl, rescued from the site of a Saudi-led air strike in Sanaa, Yemen August 25, 2017.     REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

People search under rubble of a house destroyed by an air strike in Sanaa, Yemen August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah 

Often it's timing that makes a simple picture a little bit special. Luc Gnago's picture of of a sick man waiting to attend church is one of these. The three figures are joined by a moment in time. You look up from the sick man's head along the covered leg of the man in the rear, his hand reaching forward to connect to the woman in the foreground, his orange scarf only just touching the blue of the woman's robe . Your eye is led back down the picture  through her hand and back ti the sick mans head, the cycle complete. And all this in a picture that on the surface looks like two people just walking past someone who is lying sick on the ground.  

Members of the Celestial Church of Christ walk next to a sick man before worship at the church in Abidjan, Ivory Coats, August 25, 2017.    REUTERS/Luc Gnago