The Power of Photography

Picture by Paul Hansen, Dagens Nyhete

Photography has become an everyday part of life for more or less everyone on the planet.  In fact, it is highly likely that as you are reading this post that you will have a camera somewhere within easy reach.  I'm not talking about DSLR, a compact or even a CSC.  However, the chances are that you have a camera in your mobile phone or even a web camera attached to your desktop or built in to your lap top.

For those people who are members of camera clubs, are experienced photographers or even enter competitions it is easy to be critical of other photographers ability.  I am for one as guilty as anyone else.  I see a photograph and instantly start to pull it about to the photographers technical ability, the composition, saturation, sharpness etc.  It's easy for us to do that.  We have technical ability, we can compose a picture but in essence we sometimes forget that maybe the photographer is trying just to record a moment in time.  The resulting image may not be something that would be hung in the Tate or bought by the rich and famous but the photography does something else.  It has another purpose.  It is recording a moment in time, its recording history.  This may be a massive news worthy event or it could just be documenting a child's activity in the year 2013.  Both are just as valid.  One is world history the other is Social and Economic history (something I have had a fascination with most of my life).

However, sometimes you come across an image that isn't just technically brilliant, beautiful but so powerful it can move you.  The image above is by Paul Hansen and has just won the World Press Prize and in my opinion quite rightly so.  The anger and pain so obviously comes through in his image.  The children were killed in Gaza City and were being taken for burial in a nearby mosque.  This is truly an example of where everything comes together to make a stunningly powerful image.

To see more of the world press images click here.  It is definitely well worth a look, however, please be warned some images are hard hitting, if you are easily upset or offended then please enjoy something else!