In the right place, at the right time

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A police officer edges cautiously through an abandoned house, his sidearm held up before him, ready to fire. Furniture is strewn about in disarray. At first glance, the scene looks familiar enough — a crime scene, a drug bust, the war on terror. But the caption for the black-and-white photo, which won top honors at the annual World Press Photo competition and is currently on show at the Eslite B2 Art Space, reveals a different story: the sheriff is “moving through a home in Cleveland, Ohio, following eviction as a result of mortgage foreclosure.”

The picture, taken by American photojournalist Anthony Suau for a photo-essay about the effects of the US financial crisis commissioned by Time magazine, was selected as the 52nd World Press Photo of the Year; the essay took second prize in the contest’s Daily Life category.

Suau’s entry achieves everything that the World Press Photo jury looks for in a top press photo — it asks questions of viewers and makes them want, or need, to delve more deeply into the story. Unlike last year’s winner — a picture of an exhausted US soldier in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley taken by Tim Hetherington — this year’s carries less of an immediate punch. Instead, it is full of complexity, and its impact is created gradually as you read through the caption, which, as always, is an integral part of this exhibition.

Suau’s win is remarkable as this is the second time that the veteran photojournalist has won the World Press Photo of the Year award. The first time was in 1987 for a photo of South Korean riots that flared up during elections.

Another election features prominently in this year’s

exhibition with Callie Shell’s series on the Obama campaign, also for Time magazine, which picked up first prize in the People in the News category.

Natural disaster and conflict play a prominent role in this show, as in every previous edition. The violent spat between Georgia and Russia and the Sichuan earthquake in China replaced Afghanistan and Iraq, which have been relegated to yesterday’s news, as popular subjects.

“All the stories on the conflict in Georgia show the very different ways that photographers work. You’ve got the real reportage, and then you have got a different photographer, same place, same time, who gives a totally different way of showing how he experienced it (the conflict),” said Femke van der Valk, the exhibition’s project manager, explaining why the conflagration appears in a number of the competition’s categories.

As for China, Van der Valk said she was very encouraged by the number of local photographers who won awards for their images of the Sichuan earthquake, which struck on May 12, 2008. “When something [newsworthy] happens, photographers from all over the world are flown to the place. And the ones with the best training, the best equipment and the ones who get paid best are likely to take the photos that get printed ... [In the exhibition this year, we see] Chinese photographers taking photos of their own country in a situation like this. We now see more and more that local photographers, when they have the right equipment and training, can win prizes for their own stories.”

The images of devastation are overwhelming at times, but overall, they form a minority. “Only 20 percent of the photos in the exhibition are about conflict,” Van der Valk said. “But these are the pictures people remember.”