World Press Photo 12

The World Press Photo exhibition is being held at the Marché

Bonsecours in Old Montreal between September 7 - 30, 2012. The same collection of the photographs is also currently exhibited in Saint Petersbourg, Russia.

To the left is my photo of the original by  Damir Sagolj, Bosnia and Gecegovina, from Reuters Agency. It won the 1^st Price in the category Daily Life Singles. A portrait of North Korean Founder, Kim Il-sung, known as the “Great Leader”, decorates a building in the country’s capital Pyongyang. The photo has an amazing composition of drab, lifeless building blocks, with no light in any of the windows, but with only one little bright spot in the midst of the masonry - the portrait of the first North Korean leader. This photo speaks volumes about North Korea as it portrays the  gloomy reality of the everyday living of its citizens.

The display to the left is dedicated to the last year's tsunami in Japan. These are photos by Yasuyoshi Chiba, Japan, Agence France-Press, who won the 1^st Prize in the People in the News Stories category. 

The next two photos are also about the Japan's tsunami. They were made by Koichiro Tezuka, Japan, from Mainichi Shimbun. That plane the photographer was on was sent to investigate the extend of the damage done by the earthquake that preceded the tsunami. When Koichiro Tezuka saw the unexpected tsunami rolling towards the coastline, he was horrified, yet had the presence of the mind and spirit to shoot these dramatic photos.

To the left are the photos of a natural wonder - a cave so huge and tall, that it can accommodate inside an entire New York city block of buildings 40 stories high. The photos were taken by Carsten Peter, Germany, National Geographic magazine, and won the 2^nd Prize in Nature Stories category. The name of the cave is Hang Son Dooing, and it is located in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in Vietnam. It is believed by many to be the largest cave on Earth. It is more than 4 kilometers long, with the continuous passage as wide as 90 meters, and in places more than 180 meters high. This cave is part of a system of 150 or so caves, many still not surveyed, located under the Annamite Mountains. Some of its stalagmites stretch for over half of kilometer. If you right click once on the picture, you will see a photo-gallery of all the photos in this post in a much larger format. Then you will be able to perceive extremely small people in the center of the left photo, which will give you a visual clue of how immense this cave is.

These sport photos are by Adam Pretty, Australia, Getty Images. They have won the 2nd Prize in the Sport Stories category. The photos were shot at the 14^th FiNA World Aquatics Championships in Shanghai, China, in July 2011.

My pictures of all the above photo-displays at World Press Photo 12 do not render the originals a full justice. To see the originals directly, in person, is a unique experience, which I would highly recommend to the readers of this post. For more information about the exhibition visit the World Press Photo Montreal website.