Photo: Sergio Tapiro, Mexico, 2015, The Power of Nature © Sergio Tapiro. Colima Volcano in Mexico shows a powerful night explosion with lightning, ballistic projectiles and incandescent rockfalls; image taken in the Comala municipality in Colima, Mexico, 13 December 2015.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Knowledge is not wisdom, not by any stretch of the imagination. It is simply information, often without context, made available for consumption. It may be true; it may be false. It simply exists, for better or for worse.
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What does one do with the barrage of details, the constant flow of data, this flood of information that comes from all directions at every hour of the day and night? Many will react emotionally; others will ignore completely. Fortunately there are the few who seek to evaluate the source and quality of reportage. World Press Photo Foundation is an active member of this third group. Founded in 1955, World Press Photo is an independent, non-profit organization designed to support professional photojournalism on an international scale.
Brent Stirton, South Africa, 2015, Getty Images for National Geographic, Ivory
Wars © Brent Stirton. Rangers exhibit their riding skills as they return to Zakouma National Park after
weeks on elephant patrol. Zakouma, Chad, 07 January 2015.
We are living in a time when images increasingly replace the written word as a means to communicate between and across groups around the world, with new technologies advance to make the instantaneous transmission and reproduction of images possible. On the flip side, the technologies also exist to doctor and manufacture false evidence. As Edgar Allen Poe sagely advised, “Believe nothing you hear, and only one half you see.”
World Press Photo understands the necessity of visual literacy, not just to read the pictures but help determine their credibility. Every year, they hold a photo contest to select the most important works of photojournalism produced in the categories of general news, spot news, sports, contemporary issues, daily life, people, nature, and long term projects, both individual and group. A jury of experts vigorously judges the applicants in five rounds of voting before selecting the winners, whose work is then published in an annual book.
Rohan Kelly, Australia, 2015, Daily Telegraph, Storm Front on Bondi Beach © Rohan Kelly. A massive “cloud tsunami” looms over Sydney as a sunbather reads, oblivious to the approaching cloud on Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia on 6 November 2015.
World Press Photo 16 (Thames & Hudson) presents the best photographic reportage of 2015. Consider it like a yearbook for the world, with some of the most tragic and triumphant stories being to be told. Nothing is what you would expect; it is not a like the annual end-of-year wrap-ups that the mainstream media produces every December 31.
Instead, we see stories we may never have otherwise known, stories that go beyond the surface, cutting deep down to the bone. Consider just a handful of the winners published in World Press Photo 16: David Guttenfelder’s “North Korea: Life in the Cult of Kim,” which tells us everything and nothing, just as Kim Jong-un requires of foreign journalists. Or Daniel Berehulak’s study of scientific stations on King George Island in the Antarctic, a portrait of the people who have chosen to live in one of the most foreboding climates on the planet in the hopes of advancing life for the rest of us. Then there’s Tim Laman, who documented the crisis facing orangutans in Indonesia, their habitat being destroyed for logging and agriculture, their families murdered and their children kidnapped and smuggled as part of the illegal pet trade.
Tim Laman, USA, 2015, Tough Times for Orangutans © Tim Laman. A Bornean orangutan climbs over 30 meters up a tree in the rain forest of Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, 12 August 2015.
Taken as a whole, World Press Photo 16 is a testament to the power of photojournalism and its ability to arrest time, not just with the creation of photograph but with our viewing of it. A great photograph causes us to pause, to look closer, dig deeper, and to question the known. In this way, the photojournalists featured here creating more than knowledge; they are offering a foundation upon which we may begin to build wisdom, should we desire it.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
