World Press Photo exhibition applies the same old theme
By K. Basrie
JAKARTA (JP): As in the past seven years, the Netherlands- based World Press Photo Foundation is displaying prizewinning pictures of its annual photo competition.
As a yearly exhibition here, regular visitors, particularly photographers and keen hobbyists, will naturally have one important question on their minds:
Will there be any new images that can boost skills and broaden one's horizons, leading to a very new world of press photography?
On exhibition at Erasmus Hius on Jl. Rasuna Said, South Jakarta, until next Tuesday, the photographs selected by a panel of 10 judges for the 1998 competition, however, carry the same old message: the gloomy side of the world, particularly in poor countries.
The selected 356 pictures for 61 prizes mostly catch glimpses of massacres, clashes, starving refugees, forlorn people, the fate of the poor and natural disasters that were recorded by photojournalists in 1997.
In the Spot News category, for example, the winning single shots pictured a confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians in Hebron, a bloody massacre in Algiers and the arrest of highway robbers in Albania.
While in the serial stories, the jury picked pictures of an antigovernment rebellion in Albania that led to clashes, killings and an exodus; the dreadful journey of thousands of Rwandan refugees, including women and children, on an open-topped, overloaded train from Biaro camp to Kisangani; and the success story of Peru's special commando troops which stormed the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima to rescue hostages, many of whom were VIPs.
One of the latter snaps illustrates nervous-looking Peruvian foreign minister Francisco Tudela in blood-stain clothing, looking for safety under the escort of soldiers.
Screaming
In the People in the News category, the winning portraits depict a crying Algerian woman screaming over the possible death of her family in the slaughter in Bentalha; an injured Palestinian surrounded by armed Israeli soldiers; and the funeral of a man killed by a stray bullet in Berat, Albania.
The serial winning pictures depict people's lives during the economic and political turmoil in Albania, the poorest country in Europe; the Intifada movement; and the end of the Tory era in the British politics.
In the single General News category, the winning pictures are a shot of a group of housewives in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S., comparing their guns for security reasons; an exhausted newly wed couple inside a moving luxury sedan in Taiwan; mentally ill patients taken from cubicles in a hospital in Pakistan.
The winning serial photos are of the daily activities a 33- year-old drug addict-prostitute of the Bronx in New York City; the joys and laughter of Moscow's nouveau riche inside the 200- year-old Sandunovskaya Banya public bathhouse; and how minors labor to earn a living in San Salvador, Sri Lanka, Tanzania.
In the single Sports category, a close-up of the injured ear of boxer Evander Holyfield after being bitten by Mike Tyson; a shot of American sprinter Maurice Greene, who stuck his tongue out at an opponent from Canada in an international race in Greece; and a portrait of members of the Brazilian Priests' Football Team in the changing room drew the attention of the jury.
The on-tour activities of a junior baseball team; gay rodeo participants in action outside Washington D.C.; and the sad story of a 12 year old taking part in a local boxing competition in Lennexa, Kansas, took over the sports stories category.
Portraits of the world's top sumo wrestlers competing in the Australian Grand Sumo Tournament in Sydney in mid-June only won an honorable mention prize.
The jury, which came from nine different countries, including two from Asia (Iraq and Hong Kong), may be right in saying that the selected pictures are nothing but the truth of all that happened in 1997.
On the panel's decision to pick a picture of a woman grieving after a massacre in Algiers shot by AFP photographer Hocine, the chairman of the 1998 jury, Neil Burgess, commented:
"The winning photograph has been praised as a masterful, painterly image of great skill and vision. But it becomes even more important if we see it as a tool which can help prize the truth from the tragedy that is Algeria today -- a truth which many would prefer to keep hidden."
According to the jury, the 1998 competition was participated in by 3,627 photographers from 115 countries with 36,041 entries.
From Indonesia, 51 photographers submitted shots for the competition, which so far is the only press photo contest in the world.
Technique
In terms of technique, there is nothing special about the pictures. A complicated procedure and expensive gadgets were only used in the winning photos of the Science and Technology category.
In the other eight categories, it is the eyes and the hearts of the photographers that play the greatest role compared to the equipment used.
But the professional works of the World Press Photo Foundation is a must see for any, repeat any, photographer, including hobbyists and amateurs, not only the press corps.
Here in Indonesia, photo editors would be wise to spend a little time to take a glimpse at the exhibition, which will also be on show in Yoyakarta, Semarang and Surabaya.