This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up – award-winning photojournalist Brian Cassey’s photographs from Manus Island go on show in Melbourne, plus the World Press Photo 2018 Awards nominees have been announced and there are two Australians up for Photo of the Year – Adam Ferguson and Patrick Brown.
Also, I’m thrilled to be a speaker at the Loud & Luminous Conference to be held on International Women’s Day, Thursday 8 March at Cretan House in Brunswick. I’ll share more information in the coming weeks, but check out the link here and register now. It’s free, but places are limited.
Exhibition: Melbourne
Brian Cassey – Inside Manus Detention Centre
Pakistani refugee Ezatullah Kakar (foreground) and fellow asylum seekers use local boatman to take urgently needed food and medicines back to the Lombrum, Manus Island detention centre just days after it was closed by the Australian Government and over six hundred abandoned with no food, power, health care or other essential services (C) Brian Cassey
These are the images we weren’t meant to see, the images the Australian government wanted hidden.
Award-winning photographer Brian Cassey and journalist Rory Callinan unofficially visited Manus Island three days after the Australian government walked away from this refugee detention centre last year.
Manus Island has been the focus of controversy ever since it opened. Its closure – and the abandonment of those detained – marks one of the darkest moments in this country’s treatment of refugees, which is saying something given our appalling record.
A number of Cassey’s pictures, taken in the brief time he had on the Island – 18 minutes in all – feature in the first exhibition for the year at the Fox Darkroom and Gallery, Kensington (Melbourne).
Lombrum asylum seekers collect murky water from a makeshift well and store it in rubbish bins after the Australian government cut off all services to the camp. (C) Brian CasseyLombrum asylum seekers bathe with precious water from a makeshift well that had to dig inside the detention centre. They used rubbish bins to store the water collected after the Australian government cut off all services to the camp. (C) Brian CasseyIranian refugee Rezza Chenane sits wide eyed and rocking in the Lombrum detention centre after it was abandoned by the Australian government. (C) Brian Cassey
23 February to 4 March
$5 entry fee on opening night. All proceeds will be donated to Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
Congratulations to all the nominees in this year’s World Press Photo Awards. It’s great to see two Australians in the running for Photo of the Year too – Adam Ferguson and Patrick Brown – both committed to creating engaging visual narratives that convey important stories. Winners will be announced on 12 April.
The announcement on the nominees was picked up by various media around the globe including the Telegraph UK, News.com, PetaPixel, The Atlantic, Euronews, New York Times, Daily Mail, BJP and more. This kind of publicity delivers important insights for a diverse audience beyond the industry. It also provides the opportunity for stories that have dropped off the radar to get back on the news agenda.
The nominees for the 8th annual Digital Storytelling Contest Awards were also announced in four categories of storytelling – immersive, innovative, long and short form. Check the stories out here.
Photo of the Year Nominees
Adam Ferguson: Aisha (14) stands for a portrait in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. After being kidnapped by Boko Haram, Aisha was assigned a suicide bombing mission, but managed to escape and find help instead of detonating the bombs.Patrick Brown: The bodies of Rohingya refugees are laid out after the boat in which they were attempting to flee Myanmar capsized about eight kilometers off Inani Beach, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Around 100 people were on the boat before it capsized. There were 17 survivors.Ronaldo Schemidt: José Víctor Salazar Balza (28) catches fire amid violent clashes with riot police during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela.Ivor Prickett: An unidentified young boy, who was carried out of the last ISIS-controlled area in the Old City by a man suspected of being a militant, is cared for by Iraqi Special Forces soldiers.Ivor Prickett: Civilians who had remained in west Mosul after the battle to take the city line up for aid in the Mamun neighbourhood.Toby Melville: A passerby comforts an injured woman after Khalid Masood drove his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in London, UK, killing five and injuring multiple others.
My picks – while I’m not going to try and predict which of the above photos may win, the following photos are my picks in their respective categories.
Anna Boyiazis: People category. Traditionally, girls in the Zanzibar archipelago are discouraged from learning how to swim. The Panje Project provides opportunities for local women and girls to learn swimming skills in full-length swimsuits, so that they can enter the water without compromising their cultural or religious beliefs.Thomas Peschak: Nature category. Four major ocean currents converge along the Galapagos archipelago, creating the conditions for an extraordinary diversity of animal life.Francesco Pistilli: General News category. The tightening of the so-called Balkan Route into the European Union stranded thousands of refugees attempting to travel through the country to seek a new life in Europe. Many spent the freezing Serbian winter in derelict warehouses behind Belgrade’s main train station.George Steinmetz: Contemporary Issues category. Rapidly rising incomes in China have led to a changing diet and increasing demand for meat, dairy and processed foods. The food and agricultural industry is under pressure.Kadir van Lohuizen: Environment category. Humans are producing more waste than ever before. Differences between waste management systems documented between 2016 and 2017 in Jakarta, Tokyo, Lagos, New York, Sao Paulo and Amsterdam investigate how societies manage—or mismanage—their waste.
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