The World Press Photo Awards have been announced for 2009. The full set of winners are available on their website
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/
Please be warned, there are some very strong and graphic images on this web site. This is real news happening to real people and it is not all pretty.
I have tracked these particular awards from way back. I think I have the books of the winners going back into the early-1990’s. Obviously there are a lot of very powerful, moving images in there: the competition represents the best of the world’s press photography.
Over time they also represent a great visual history of recent events.
But looking at the images of conflict in this collection show me that the trend in the press has been to more stark, shocking, even grotesque imagery.
Don McCullin was also in the news recently as London’s Imperial War Museum is featuring an exhibition and he presented an audio slide show on the BBC Website.
Looking at McCullin’s work is a very different experience for me. He in no way holds back on the impact of conflict but it seems his focus is much more on the living left behind during conflict and what it has done to them as it is about the dead.
Of course the World Press Photo Awards is not all war, I still love all the sports work and a lot of the features. It is well worth a look.
I guess the only question is whether I will still buy the book now that all the winning images are on the web site. I still love having this kind of stuff in my hands in print!