The annual exhibition of the best professional photo-journalism pictures of the year, as selected by the World Press jury combined with the selection of the best Israeli press photographs is open as each of the last few years at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. I visited it today, it is open for another couple of weeks and I recommend to all folks interested in art, in reality and in the combination of the two not to miss it.
The World Press Photo competition for 2012 dealt in two rounds of jury selection with photographs reflecting a large number of events that took place in the previous year (2011). It was the year of the Arab Spring, of the social protests all over the world, of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, of the continuous confrontation of man with nature and of nature with man.
source http://www.photolight.co.il/photonews/worldpressphoto_edut.html
Photo of the year was Samuel Aranda’s picture of a mother holding in her arms her son wounded in the protests in Yemen. With it’s Pieta quality this photo may remain one of the iconic images of what is called the Arab Spring, beyond the political approach or opinions one may have about the events.
The photographs in the exhibition belong to professional photographers, people who travel all over, putting their talents to the service of audiences interested in reality but also in sensation, in truth and also in esthetics. Taking some of the these pictures meant also personal risks and a few photo-journalists lost their lives in this eventful year. The questions of the relation between journalism and art, between the documentary value and the beauty of the photographs as art object are still open, such events will not provide necessary responses but material for thought.
Here are a few more pictures from the exhibition.
source http://www.photolight.co.il/photonews/worldpressphoto_edut.html
The earthquake and tsunami in Japan and their aftermath occasioned many spectacular pictures, among which the striking work of Paolo Pellegrin.
source http://www.photolight.co.il/photonews/worldpressphoto_edut.html
Brent Stirton’s photo of armed guards keeping 24 hours shifts around one of the six animals left of their kind surviving in the world tell a lot about
More information about Word Press 12 and more works can be seen at http://www.worldpressphoto.org/gallery/2012-world-press-photo.
source http://www.eretzmuseum.org.il/e/275/
What did the Israeli photographers catch on their camera during this year? Some of the answers in the Local Testimony section which this year equals in dimensions the international one.
They have photographed the social protest – in this case it’s an episode from one of the demonstrations of the members of the Ethiopian community against discrimination as caught on Uri Sadeh’s camera.
source http://www.eretzmuseum.org.il/e/275/
Many photographs and even photography exhibitions (I visited one at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem a few weeks ago) dealt with the ultra-religious community which is ‘re-discovered’ by Israeli secular audiences. This picture with a a classical touch is taken at a wedding by Abir Sultan.
source http://www.eretzmuseum.org.il/e/
Nature confronting urban reality is the subject of this photo taken in an Israeli city after a strong storm at the end of February last year.