Review: World Press Photo 2011

A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but for South African photographer Jodi Bieber, winner of the 2011 World Press Photo Competition, those words are just as important as the image.

"I work in stories," Bieber tells The Prague Post. "I try to keep it honest and be a thinking photographer. People seem to respond to that."

Bieber's winning photograph, a portrait of Bibi Aisha, a young Afghan woman whose nose and ears were cut off as punishment for fleeing her husband's home, reveals not only the troubling experience of one individual, but shows with remarkable clarity the persecution that all women can face in Afghanistan and around the world.

"The photo is about violence against women. There is a war against women, a silent war, and all of this is publicity highlighting that," Bieber says.  

Bieber, who has previously won eight World Press awards and a host of other accolades, was in Afghanistan on an assigment for Time magazine, photographing women for a project called "Real Beauty," when she met Aisha at a shelter run by the aid foundation Women for Afghan Women. Bieber says she was immediately struck by Aisha's shocking appearence, but also by a spirit she felt was lurking beneath the surface.

"You don't often see a woman without a nose. But you could see her innocence; you could see the young woman behind what happened," Bieber says. "I asked her to forget what had happened for a moment, to think about her own inner beauty and power. She felt what I was saying, and that's the moment I took the photo."

Aisha has since been taken to New York for counseling and reconstructive surgery. She lives in Queens and continues to keep in touch with Bieber, whose photo, along with the other award winners from this year's World Press Photo Competition, are now on display at the Karolinum. A total of 5,691 photographers from 125 nations submitted a record-breaking 108,059 pictures to the competion jury, which consists of some of the most pre-eminent figures in visual journalism.

The competition, which was established in the Netherlands in 1955, aims to promote the work of professional photographers to the general public in categories ranging from sports and nature photography to current events. Over the past 56 years, the competition has documented changing trends in photo journalism as well as a half-century of human history. Many of the photographs on display in this year's exhibition document poignant moments from breaking news stories over the past year.

One such moment, from the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, was captured by French photographer Oliver Laban-Mattai. A worker clears children's bodies from a morgue in a hospital in earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

"The jury preferred real stories. They push people into thinking about the world," Michaela Kindlová, organizer of the Prague exhibition, says. "You are actually thinking about the picture, about the situation and the nature of the people also."

Global catastrophes of the past year feature prominantly throughout the exhibition, and viewing these photos is at times a harrowing experience. Not all of the photos portray tragedy, however. Many show intimate scenes from everyday life, like a photo by Irishman Andrew McConnell, showing a woman practicing the cello with only a corrugated plastic partitian between her and a bustling Congo street. The woman, a member of Central Africa's only sympthony orchestra, is a self-taught amateur who runs a market stall during the day. This photograph won McConnell The Prague Prize, which is presented annually by the mayor of Prague.

There are also photographs of both sports and nature on display, and these are as striking as any of the human dramas in the exhibition. South Australian photographer Adam Pretty captures a painful moment during a race at the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore. National Geographic photographer Thomas P. Peshak presents a remarkable image of a Cape Gannet bird at Malgas Island. These photos offer respite from some of the more disturbing pieces on display.

The World Press Photo Exhibit is on display in Prague until Oct. 9, when it will travel to Copenhagen, then Berlin and a host of other international galleries.

Alex Tyler can be reached at
atyler@praguepost.com