Art: Journalism Photography: Picture of the Year Awards, Missouri School of Journalism

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This blog-entry has been transferred here from page 3 to the new refWrite Backpage (page 4). The move completes the transferral of all the April blog entries to this page, their new home. It was first posted Apr27,2k6. There were 12 page-3 blog-entries made in May, all of which remain to be moved to the Backpage; and there were 5 earlier in June, also to be moved in due course. Slowly but surely. There will be some editing of the moved blog-entries, at the end of the moving process
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Every year the Missouri School of Journalism goes thru an elaborate process of juried selection of what the judges consider to be the best photos from journalist-photographyers in numerous categories. The result is a rich feast of photographic art in which "every picture tells a story...." This year the 63rd Picture of the Year International awards (2005, judged in February and March 2006) is no different; and the results are posted on the Internet for you to see.

First off, you may want to visit the webpage that describes the Award process, and serves as a launch point for you to view your own selections by topic. From there you may want to go to the Complete Winners Gallery with live-links to each of the various categories. Or, instead you may want to view the overall First Place Winner's work, Barbara Davison of Dallas Morning News, who thereby is named Photographer of the Year as a professional Award. Nine of her photos this year can be accessed from the previous link. Take a look!

Because so many of the photos are somber, I've paused to pick out from the "World Understanding" category this splendid work of beauty to whet your appetite.

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This is one of 34 photos by Lemoyne Roger (Redux / Alexia Foundation, winner of the World Understanding Award; the work is entitled, "Democratic Republic of Congo." Here's the text that tells the story another way:

March 26, 2005. Fishermen ply their age-old trade on Lake Albert, despite the turmoil that has engulfed the Great Lakes Region in recent years. Summary: This series covers the conflict in Eastern Congo and the UN led effort to bring peace. The deadliest since WWII, it persists in part because of the plundering of the Congo's immense mineral wealth by militias and neighboring countries. Ethnic strife that has torn the Great Lakes region apart is also a factor. A recent referendum on the constitution and elections planned for 2006 offer hope for this Western-Europe sized country that hosts the UN's most expensive and amibitious undertaking in the world. In the war-ravaged eastern provinces of the D.R. Congo in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, MONUC (the United Nations Peace Keeping Mission to the Congo) has given militias until April 1st to turn in their weapons and join the de-mobilization and re-integration program run by the UNDP (United Nations Development Program). Although the program had been in effect for months, there had been limited disarmament. Once the deadline had been set, a flood of militiamen, including child soldiers, suddenly entered the program.

Art Talk, by Anaximaximum

The winning photograph in the World Understanding category is a serene, even idyllic, narrative of men going about their daily work on the lake; it uses the silouette in the foreground to give the us a point of view. Somehow tho, it's the gnarled tree limb that is the visual center of the photo's image field, and I read the aged gnarling as metaphor for the society's virulent ills and suffering, in contrast to the calm of the lake, the sky, the fishermen, the nets, the daily work with its routines and order.

aesthetics, arts, photography, journalism, moschljournlsm, pixyearawards2005

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