News

Do journalistic competitions express photojournalistic trends?

Before you start reading the opinions of individual jurors, allow me a brief commentary. I have been with the international jury of CPP for fifteen years. Not as a juryman. My job is to inform the public what happens during the judging and other CPP activities. So for fifteen years now I have been observing this living organism, whose energy sloshes around for the few days of judging and in the end, the main prize of the competition, the Photograph of the Year, emerges. The prize should reflect not only the key events of the year, but be aesthetically pleasing as well. It’s rare for the jury to unanimously agree on one photograph. The response from the public is sometimes positive, other times not. But all that is a part of the competition, and the disciplines cannot be measured as exactly as a 100 metre run. Furthermore, art isn’t a universal product, which everyone, including the critics, likes (or dislikes) equally. The same goes for music, literature, painting and photography. And that’s the reason why, this year again, I prepared for you interviews with the CPP jury in which I tried to decode their state of  “photographic mind” at the time when they weren’t yet considering the awards; when they were still faced with kilometres of “fresh” photographs, but when at the same time they carried in their minds the continuity of previous competitions, which link the past to the present. As an indicator of continuity - the photographic paper - I pulled out two main photographic awards from last year, which had been quite controversial. They were the pictures of Barack Obama by Joe Klamar (Photograph of the Year Czech Press Photo 2009 – you can see it on these web pages) and of a woman from Teheran by the Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo (Photograph of the Year World Press Photo 2009 – you can see it on http://www.worldpressphoto.org). I recorded the interviews on Friday, the 8th October and on Saturday, the 9th October, in the hectic atmosphere during coffee breaks and short lunches in the Prague Mayor’s residence where the jury worked; and then during dinners at an Indian restaurant in Michelska Street and the Malostranska Beseda restaurant. You will be able to read the different views, which came out of these meetings. And this variety of opinions is also reflected in the selection of this year’s photographs.

Oleg Homola

Jury of Czech Press Photo 2010. Standing from the left: Arianna RINALDO, Kate EDWARDS, Antonello ZAPPADU, Daniela MRAZKOVA (CPP organiser, wasn’t voting), Marian PAUER, Eugen GINDL, Vladimir BIRGUS. Sitting from the left: Cvetan TOMCEV, Daphne ANGLES, Andrej REISER, Peter KORNISS, Mladen ANTONOV.

Question for the jury Czech Press Photo 2010.

Last year’s Photograph of the Year World Press Photo 2009 and Czech Press Photo 2009 have something in common. The main figures cover only a small percentage of the whole picture. In the case of the WPP it is a woman on the roof of a house, which you could easily overlook among the scenery of the rest of the surrounding buildings. In the case of CPP, there we see president Barrack Obama and the statue of president Masaryk – both figure very small at the bottom corners of the picture, while there is a great expanse of sky above them. In my opinion, both the winning pictures WPP 2009 and CPP 2009 are not easily readable. However, readability is generally regarded a strong point of regular press photography. My question is: Is it a trend of press photography competitions or is it a trend of photojournalism in general?

Arianna RINALDO, photo editor, consultant and curator, editor-in-chief Ojodepez, Italy and Spain
I think that exhibitions are a reflection of what is happening around us and what is the journalistic trend at the time. Photographs of the year in both contests brought us photo messages that are not obvious at first. You have to look twice and very carefully to understand their strength and meaning. But obviously it’s still journalism. In our time, this type of message is important because we are bombarded by images and sometimes we don’t even notice them because there are so many of them. And when you don’t understand something, you have to look twice. That helps you to look deep to see what is in fact happening. Maybe you can argue that newspapers are then not selling. That is true. But fortunately we have different types of the media. For newspapers we need direct information. But for magazines, the web or media that you need more time to read, to be able to go back to the topics and browse through the pages, you can use photographs, which force you to think. These types of photographs educate people who are not used to read deep picture messages. They then try to look more carefully – as opposed to understanding a direct, shocking picture.
 

Eugen GINDL, journalist, playwright, screenwriter, Slovakia
You can’t talk about trends and both the juries’ decisions were legitimate. In the case of Czech Press Photo there was also the matter of a general symbol; and at the same time it was spot news, which you can sense from it. That was very fortunate. And we saw it as a remarkable photograph. I read all the discussions about whether the photograph was manipulated. I don’t think it was.
 

Mladen ANTONOV, editor-in-chief AFP Photo, France
We are surrounded by thousands of images every day. At railway stations, tram stops, on television and the web. So every different viewpoint is welcome.  That’s also why I like both the pictures of the year and on top of that I like the fact that the Czech photograph was taken by Joe Klamar from our agency (laughs). But I have a stronger reason still. We talked a lot about the forthcoming reportage and we wanted a picture of president Obama similar to that.  Joe’s wasn’t a picture taken by accident. And of course we also needed Obama against Prague spires. But Joe produced yet another angle, without the spires but with the statue of president Masaryk.
 

Kate EDWARDS, picture editor The Guardian, Great Britain.
It’s not the trend of competitions such as World Press Photo and Czech Press Photo. I think it’s going to be changing from year to year; it won’t all go in one direction. All is dependent on pictures photographers are going to be sending. However, what is true nowadays is that there is a tendency to look for photographs with longer life and more depth, telling a story, which is not immediately obvious. Readers are much more complex these days. Of course there must be a place for photographs that are obvious and readable at first viewing. But at the same time there must be space for photographs in which readers discover the story gradually.
 

Andrej REISER, Czech Republic, CPP chairman
It definitely is not a press photography trend. That’s the type of photography an editor will generally not use in newspapers because they are not easily readable. But in competitions, even jurors from newspapers and magazines value some artistic qualities in photographs. And they don’t really think whether the photograph can be used in the media.
 

Peter KORNISS, photographer, curator, Hungary
I don’t think it’s a tendency of competitions. Jury always wants to find something unusual. Strong. Photographs should be different, “fresh”. But it all depends on what photographers send to competitions. Last year the jury was aware that Joe Klamar’s Obama is not a classical photograph (Peter Korniss was on the jury). But it was a photograph I immediately noticed. It was about an important event and the photograph was symbolic. Masaryk and Obama. It was a lucky year because this photograph will remain timeless, even though there were many discussions around it. But AFP placed it well in the media where it was given space, even a double page.
 

Daniela MRAZKOVA is the founder and organiser of Czech Press Photo, Czech Republic
It’s more a tendency of competitions and exhibitions rather than tendency in photojournalism in newspapers and the media. In the case of the Photograph of the year the jury always seeks picture symbol of some important event or problem of that year, either in national or international context. And so it happens that even a less readable photograph – but really symbolic – can win. A good example is our photograph from 2009, where there was a symbol of connection between Obama and Prague through the statue of Masaryk. The same happened in World Press Photo. I don’t think it’s wrong because without the competitions, these photographs wouldn’t be shown on front pages of newspapers. The importance of competitions like World Press Photo and Czech Press Photo lies in the fact that the newspapers have to print the pictures big so people can ‘read’ them. And they have to be accompanied by an extended caption. But maybe these images provoke readers more to think than if it was a clearly readable photograph.
 

Daphne ANGLES, picture editor The New York Times, USA/France
I think it is a trend. Not in photojournalistic competitions but in the world of photography. It’s about looking for a new language. It doesn’t mean that the content of pictures is less important – journalistic photography always pictures reality. Photojournalists always record reality. And even if the view is from a different angle, it is still reality. When you photograph a street demonstration, you don’t have to photograph it in the street, but perhaps from a roof. It is still a demonstration. Life is varied and photography should follow. You can photograph a straight message but if you are talented, you try to find something surprising, something, which makes you think. I think it’s important to trust people’s visual culture of awareness of photography in that they can translate visual messages. And people are experienced these days because there are pictures all around us. If a photograph is not immediately readable, it doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with it. But it has to show something real, interesting and it has to have a human dimension with which people connect.
 

Vladimir BIRGUS, pedagogue, photography historian, curator, Czech Republic
It’s always primarily a question of who is in the jury. For example there was a unique attempt in World Press Photo a few years ago to appraise mainly conceptually complete series and to eliminate all accidental pictures when for example someone with a camera finds himself at a place where they are perhaps just lynching someone. Otherwise I feel that there is a big difference between the two photographs you mention. The photograph of Obama and Masaryk is clearly readable. It raised some discussions as to why this particular picture had won but it undoubtedly has certain creative qualities. I have a bigger problem with this year’s World Press Photo winning photograph, showing women on the roof of a building in Teheran. Without an explanatory caption that it was a protest against the manipulation of the presidential election, it is completely unreadable. Just as at last year’s World Press Photo there was a very unreadable but excellent photograph by Anthony Suau, which showed police intervention in an empty, abandoned house because the inhabitants were not able to pay their mortgage. It was a reaction to a typical situation created by the economic crises and in the centre of interest. There were talks in the press and among ordinary people about property repossessions, which then became property of the banks. But again, the photograph was not understandable without the explanatory text. The photographs I am talking about will never become such icons of its time as Eddie Adams’ photograph of the execution of a partisan on a Saigon street, or the photograph of the naked Vietnamese girl running away from burning napalm.
 

Cvetan TOMCEV, journalist, pedagogue, chairman of foundation and director of Bulgarian Press Photo, Bulgaria
I don’t think this is any trend one way or the other. I can’t see anything unusual in last year’s pictures from either the World Press or Czech Press Photo. For me both photographs are generally acceptable. In the case of World Press Photo I originally thought that the woman went up to the roof for her evening prayers. But was only from the caption that one found out that it was a form of protest. However, it’s a great picture because it shows a protest by people who can’t normally protest in the streets. Photographically it’s more difficult than pictures from a street where they are shooting and there is a lot of blood. Joe Klamar’s picture of president Obama and Masaryk is a typical, well thought out agency spot news photograph of an event. The photograph is very simple, it is a symbol, a message that this is Obama’s visit to Prague. And yet it isn’t a cliché like the photographs of Obama against the church spires of Prague. You can make such a cliché with the background of church spires anywhere in the world, for example in Moscow or Sophia.
 

Antonello ZAPPADU, photographer ANSA, AP, Unita and others, Italy
I think that it is more typical for competitions. In the case of the World Press Photo picture, I wouldn’t represent myself with such image; I wouldn’t sent it to a competition. Without a caption, it says nothing.  It looks like one woman is calling another woman, whom we can’t see but is probably somewhere near. The explanation of the photograph can have many meanings. I wouldn’t publish such an image; I would destroy it. I would hesitate with the picture from Czech Press Photo. I would definitely cut of some of the sky.
 

Marian PAUER, publicist, curator, Slovakia
I am not sure whether I would call it a competitions trend or photojournalistic trend. Thanks to Czech Press Photo, Klamar’s picture of Obama and Masaryk was published on the front page of Sme. When the newspaper was folded on a shop counter, all you could see was the top part of the photograph as if nothing was there. It looked like censorship. Many people bought the paper precisely for this reason - they wanted to know what was going on. And that’s how the photograph got attention. I think it’s good that such photographs are taken because they are readable on another level. At first you may just walk past it and don’t notice what it is about. But particularly the Obama picture carries a clear message that Obama follows on Masaryk’s humanity. The photographer pointed it out.  Because he composed the two small figures and nothing else was disturbing, it became readable. Even if some people think that it wasn’t readable.  The same goes for the World Press Photo picture. It’s good that the readability is there only on second viewing. With some photographs one needs to stop and think. That doesn’t harm anybody.  But now I will turn my reasoning around. Digital age brought an entirely new philosophy into photography. When you used film and had thirty-six pictures, you really thought when you were going to press the shutter. Photographers tried to photograph so that their subject matter would fit in the film. Nowadays they shoot and shoot hoping that when they download the pictures they will find the picture they wanted to make. But that’s a big mistake because the photograph may not be there. There is valid philosophy that you don’t think before you press the shutter but after. But the photographs awarded at World Press Photo and Czech Press Photo had been thought out before the photographer pressed the shutter. Both the winners had an idea of what they wanted to say and then photographed the idea. When they came to their computers, it was clear that they had the photograph. For example Joe Klamar went to have a look at the place the night before and worked everything out.

Oleg Homola (text and photos)