“World Press Photo inspires understanding of the world through photojournalism”

Refugee crowd

Paul Ruseler

BY ADA DIKE

There are a group of people working in the media all over the world that their job is tell stories and disseminate information with pictures. They are the photojournalists.

In a bid to encourage photojournalists and celebrate them, with around 100 local exhibitions produced every year, the World Press Photo exhibition tour of prize-winning photographs, the most popular traveling photo event in the world, every year, holds a competition for them and celebrate the winners.

We learnt that thousands of entries are entered by photojournalists yearly. During the 58th World Press Photo contest, 97,912 photos made by 5,692 photographers from 131 different countries were selected. 

Commenting on the World Press Photo exhibition that kicked off in Lagos last week Friday, World Press Photo’s Senior Project Manager Exhibitions, Paul Ruseler, said: “What we are

Work by Glenna Gordon.

seeing here is a world press competition. All of the photos here have been selected by a jury in Amsterdam in a competition of about 93 members. All of these pictures are being exhibited in about 90 cities around the world of which, Lagos is a part for three years,” he said.

Graves diggers for Ebola victims

Ebola

Family Love

Ruseler explained what World Press Photo is all about by saying that: “It aims to inspire the understanding of the world

through photojournalism. So, we want to promote photojournalists to showcase their work. It gives them platforms to show their work and interact with people around the world. There are around 3 to 4 million people visiting the real exhibition which is incredible and unmatched anywhere. It also gives people a kind of insight of what is happening around the world and how journalists go about reporting them.  

“World Press Photo has a long history. We have been organizing it for 60 years since 1955. It started in Armsterdam and we are proud of its long history.”

Speaking on the criteria for participating in the competition he said the most important thing jury members are looking for is to actually see how a photographer went about telling a story, and added that it has to do with the way the photographer has managed to represent these issues.

“On the impact the photographs has on the viewers, he said: “Sometimes they are a bit shocked. It is an experience that a lot of people come back to, that is why I am glad that we have been building up this exhibition here in Lagos. People who have seen the exhibition always come back to see the next exhibition because you learn a lot from it every year and create your thoughts and ideas. It is meditative moment that you can reflect on the news.”

Some of the works showcased in Lagos:

One of the photos is a picture of a woman smoking cigarette. Ruseler explained that a photographer followed the woman for over 20 years, The woman is a drug addict and she is human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive. “So it is a very problematic family. It is quite remarkable if you have been following somebody for 20 years, so it gives us an overview of someone’s life who has been in a very difficult situation, maybe she made wrong choices she never envisaged.”

The work of Pete Muller, USA, Prime for National Geographic/The Washington Post was on Ebola. It mirrors Ebola in Sierra Leone and won General News, first prize stories.

Works displayed at the World Press Photo exhibition

“Medical staff escort a man, delirious in the final stages of Ebola, back into the isolation ward from which he had escaped, in Hastings, near the capital Freetown. The man had attempted to climb over the back wall of the complex, before collapsing in a convulsive state. A complete breakdown of mental facilities is a common stage of advanced Ebola. The man died shortly after this picture was taken.
“The first cases of a new outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Sierra Leone were reported in May. There is no cure for Ebola, and the fatality rate can be as high as 90 percent. The virus causes high fever, vomiting, and diarrhea, as well as internal and external bleeding. It is highly contagious, being passed on by sweat, blood and other bodily fluids. Extreme care has to be taken to avoid infection while treating patients, and in burying victims. 
“The healthcare system in Sierra Leone, one of the world’s poorest countries, was not equipped to cope with the disease, and assistance from foreign NGOs became crucial. By the end of the year, 2,758 people had died of Ebola in Sierra Leone. The disease also ravaged neighboring Guinea and Liberia, with 7,880 deaths reported across the three countries overall in 2014.”

(Commissioned by Prime for National Geographic / The Washington Post.)

Top left: Medical staff escort a man, delirious in the final stages of Ebola, back into the isolation ward from which had escaped.

Right: People wait beside the road, after being denied passage through the quarantine checkpoint.

Below Left: Residents of a town badly affected by Ebola, gather along a river at dusk.

Right: A Red Cross burial team, wearing protective equipment, enters the home of a woman who is suspected of having died from Ebola.

Another work by Muller is “Grave diggers resting after a day of burials at the King Tom cemetery in Freetown, Sierre Leone”

“The crowded picture below by a journalist in Italy is a picture of Refugee crowd on board a boat some 25 kilometres from Libyan coast, prior to be being rescued by an Italian naval frigate working as part of ‘Operation Mare Nostrum (OMN). “The search-and-rescue operation was put in place by the Italian government in response to the drowning of hundreds of migrants off the Island of Lampedusa at the end of 2013. The numbers of people risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea rose sharply in 2014. OMN involved a number NGOs in an effort not only to rescue lives, but to provide medical help, counseling, and cultural support. Naval officers were also empowered to arrest human traffickers and seize their ships. In its one year of operation, OMN brought 330 smugglers to justice, and saved more than 150,000 people, at least a quarter of which were refugees from Syria. The operation was disbanded in October last year, and replaced by Triton, an operation conducted by the EU border agency Frontex, focusing more on surveillance than rescue.”

“Family Love 1993-2014 (USA, Agence Vu),” which won first prize is a long term project. “Story of Julie Baird and her family is a complete story of poverty, AIDS, drugs, multiple homes, relationships, births, deaths and reunion. By focusing one woman’s struggle, I hoped to provide an in-depth look at social issues surrounding disadvantage and ..but I also wanted to create a record for Julie’s children and their mother’s story,” Darcy P.

Left: Elyssa plays with her cousin while living with her father Jason’s adoptive sister, Corey, in Oregon, USA, in 2012. For the first time, Elyssa has a bedtime routine: brush teeth, read book, pray and go to bed. She and Jason had moved to Oregon in 2011, initially to an apartment furnished by Jason’s adoptive family. Later, Elyssa went to live with Corvey, and then with a foster family.

Top left: Jason disciplines Elyssa, in their new aprtment in Oregon.

Below: Jason walks to receive his sentence, on a charge of sexual abuse of a minor.

Work by Gleena Gordon, USA, for the Wall Street Journal/Time categorized as General News won second prize story. School uniforms belonging to three of the kidnapped girls.
“On 14 April, 276 girls were abducted from their school dormitory in Chibok, a remote town in Northern Nigeria, by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

Guests at the World Press Photo Exhibition held at Freedom Park, Lagos

“Boko Haram (whose name translates roughly as ‘Western education is forbidden’) seeks the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria, and opposes the concentration of wealth among what it sees as a Christian elite in the south of the country. The group opposes secular education, especially for girls, and has for some years been attacking schools, killing civilians, kidnapping pupils, and conducting forced recruitment into its ranks. Around 50 of the Chibok girls managed to escape, but the fate of the remainder remains unclear. Efforts by the Nigerian government to rescue them or negotiate their release proved ineffective, although a hashtag campaign, #BringBackOurGirls, led to extensive media attention.” Commissioned by for The Wall Street Journal / Time.