The top prize-winner in this year's contest is an image by the Anthony Suau of a police officer in Cleveland entering a home, gun drawn, after a mortgage foreclosure and the eviction of its residents. The photo doesn't cause us any extraordinary distress, as the newspapers are full of similar pictures, thought it still drives home the reality of the crisis. An image by Luiz Vasconcelos of the eviction of a squatter in Brazil, clutching her naked girl to her chest and running from a line of police in riot gear and shields, does cause distress, but the story, the reason for the chase, is left out of the picture, making it only an assault on our emotions.
A series of images of the chaotic life of a single mother with seven children by Brenda Ann Kenneally won first prize in the stories category. But these pictures could be every-day life in Hungary, too, even the kids pretending to smoke and the squalid living conditions.
Sensation now means something else than it did before. Perhaps since 9-11 it has become clear that the world is a state of danger. This sinks in deeper year after year, while the extraordinary and the shocking become more and more every-day. Maybe photojournalists ought to start looking for something other than the usual themes, something novel, such as the series of photos by Steve Winter, who took first prize for stories in the nature part of the contest for images of the elusive snow leopard in the Himalayas. Anyway, where are the pictures of nature destroyed? Not the scenes of destruction after natural disaster, but the destruction wreaked by global warming, by carbon emissions. Where is the shrinking rain forest?
With some exceptions, such as the pictures of the Beijing Olympics and, of course, the snow leopard, many of the winning photos in last year's World Press Photo contest could have been taken in Hungary.
Author: Eszter Götz
