which one is your favorite?
The international jury of the 49th annual World Press Photo contest selected a color image of the Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly of Reuters as World Press Photo of the Year 2005. The picture shows the emaciated fingers of a one-year-old child pressed against the lips of his mother at an emergency feeding clinic in Niger. A devastating swarm of locusts and the worst drought in decades left millions of people short of food in the African state. The picture was taken in Tahoua, northwestern Niger, on 1 August 2005.
World Press Photo jury chairman James Colton described the winning image: "This picture has haunted me ever since I first saw it two weeks ago. It has stayed in my head, even after seeing all the thousands of others during the competition. This image has everything - beauty, horror and despair. It is simple, elegant and moving."
This year 4,448 professional photographers from 122 countries entered 83,044 images in the most prestigious annual international competition in press photography. The judging sessions took place in Amsterdam from 28 January to 9 February and were completely digital.
The jury gave prizes in 10 theme categories to 63 photographers of 25 nationalities from: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Norway, People's Republic of China, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom and the USA.
Finbarr O'Reilly, the author of the World Press Photo of the Year 2005, will receive his award and a cash prize of 10,000 euro at the awards ceremony in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, on Sunday 23 April 2006. In addition, Canon will donate O'Reilly a Canon EOS 1D Mark II n camera.
1. Mother and child at emergency feeding center, Tahoua, Niger, 1 August
2. Car bomb explosion, Beirut, Lebanon,
14 February
3. Young girl grieves her parents killed by
US patrol, Tal Afar, Iraq, 18 January
4. London underground bomb attack survivor, London, 7 July
5. Street violence surrounding presidential elections, Togo, 22-27 April
6. Kashmir earthquake aftermath,
October-December
7. Hurricane Katrina aftermath, New Orleans,
30 August-5 September
8. Car bomb explosion at Tahrir Square, Baghdad, Iraq, 7 May
9. Reburial of Srebrenica massacre victims' bodies, Potocari, Bosnia, 11 July
10. Evacuation of Jewish settlements,
12-18 August
11. Tsunami aftermath,
3-10 January
12. Kashmir earthquake aftermath.
13. Guatemalan youth gangs
14. Diver Chelsea Davis at FINA World Championships, Montreal, 22 July
15. Sidney Maluleke fights with Sello Hawong, Johannesburg, 16 September
16. Sports portfolio: Aaron Peirsol at Santa Clara Grand Prix, California, 26 June
17. Sports portfolio: Maria Sharapova at Australian Open Championships
18. Sahara Marathon
19. Bull fighter, Medellín
20. Boys play football, Kabul, Afghanistan
21. Wheelchair athletes relax after race, Alaska.
22. Boy helps his father to dress, Sierra Leone
23. Malawi Prison
24. Drinking from a polluted well, Gutri, India
25. Journey of an immigrant
26. Diamond industry
27. Breast Cancer
28. North Korean frontier guards
29. Street children, Kinshasa, DR Congo
30. Child labourer in a textile factory, Bangladesh
31. One vodka too many, Chernobyl, Ukraine
32. Romania
33. School for the blind, Liberia
34. Mallam Gahadima Ahamadu with the hyena Jamis, Abuja, Nigeria
35. Mia, drug addict and prostitute
36. Kashmir earthquake survivor, Balakot, Pakistan
37. Chernobyl children Natasha and Vadim
38. World War II veterans
39. US Marines in Iraq
40. Ballet class, Alexandra Township
41. Tsunami victims commemoration ceremony, Thailand
42. At Salvador Dalí exhibition, Philadelphia
43. Dafen oil painting village
44. New York Fashion Week
45. Polar bear, Svalbard
46. Stranded fishing boat after tsunami, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 12 January
47. Fruit bats, Kasanka National Park, Zambia
48. Amazon drought
49. Asian elephant
50. Ballet school, Moldova
:edit: i took out some of the pictures to save time. search for "World Press Photo of the Year 2005" to get the link to all the images. and the latest entries. ALL of them, to me, were striking. They inspire me to be more into photojournalism than anything.
