World Press Photo Exhibition
WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS IN BODY OF POST.
Bertie and Des zooted off to the Hilton Arts Festival on Saturday 16 September, to check out the World Press Photo Exhibition and attend some of the presentations.
The exhibition was very sobering, images from around the world depicting the very dark world we live in, from the aftermath of suicide bombers and drug wars gone wrong, to the slums in Brazil, Syria at war to long-term projects that show everyday life in Table Rock, Nebraska – population 255. See all the images here.
We stared in horror at “Rhino”, an image by Brent Stirton in the Nature category. Behind the horror our “judges” brains kicked in – a beautifully haunting photo.
The other image that resonated with both of us was the winner in the Spot News category, “Pakistan Bomb Blast” by Jamal Taraqai.
“Survivors and onlookers help those injured in a suicide bomb attack at the Civil Hospital in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistan Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, in which at least 70 people were killed and more than 100 injured. “
MADIBA EXHIBITION
We met documentary photographer, Matthew Willman, the Nelson Mandela photographer whose exhibition at the festival was insured for R2,2 million. Visit his website here, and check out his Dance images too. Much in demand, he was flying off on Friday to photograph Bill Clinton.
PRESENTATIONS
The first presentation was “Keeping Time” by Chris Albertyn, with wonderful memories inserted by Ian Huntley.
“Ian Bruce Huntley captured more than 1500 South African jazz-related images and recorded and preserved in excess of 56 hours of reel-to-reel audio of jazz performed in Cape Town over the period 1964-1974.”
The images (and exceptional recordings) can be viewed and downloaded here.
It had turned into a lovely day, so after a chicken burger, iced coffee, Italian icecream and a flying fish or two, we wandered over to Stephen Pryke’s table. He has just published a book of his images “Secrets of the Mountains and Hills”. Stephen is a former Chairman of the MCC, back in the days of film… check out his facebook page here.
The second presentation was fabulous. Humble and unassuming, Jodi Beiber took us through beautiful images of your best known projects. She shoots with a Nikon, and a 35 or 50mm lens, 5:4.
“Real Beauty” was inspired by the Dove’s world-wide campaign Real Beauty, and depicts South African women of all sizes and races (view here). “Between dogs and wolves” is a collection of harsh black and white images, that had you shaking your head. (view here). She tells the story of a kind man taking her round the streets to take photos, and his wallet being stolen and thinking what an amazing man this was, he did not get angry or chase any of the children to get it back. Three days later, on the front page of the paper was his photograph with the headline SERIAL KILLER. The man was Moses Sithole.
But is was “Las Canas” that sent chills up our spines. A garbage dump outside of Valencia, Spain, Jodi went to document the spread of HIV/Aids through dirty needles. She tells of using Ghanian drug dealers as translators, and how she had to get over her fear of needles. This image below got me. (view all the images here)
Jodi is best known for her image of Bibi Aisha, a woman from Afghanistan whose ears and nose where cut off by her family as punishment for leaving her husband. This image was on the cover of Times, and was selected as World Press Photo of the year in 2010.
It was great to bump into Doug and Liesl who where watching some shows, and a good chinwag with Phil (about all this photographic of course) was a good end to a good day.
If you couldn’t make it this year, be sure to get there in 2018.