Photo journalism

Out of the four photo-reports, two photographs really stood out to me.

This is the first one,

Caption in the NYtimes: Health Ministry officials said Saturday afternoon that at least 168 people were hospitalized.

I think that the colours are very powerful, the contrast between the left and the right sides bring a lot of energy in a still picture. The man is directly in the center, and I find unusual the fact that he is wearing a suit, and holds a water bottle, so close to a fire. From his attitude, the viewer can deduce a kind of habbit of the Egyptian population to face such incidents, which is sad.

The second picture could not be downloaded, so here is the link,

The Swat Valley, After the Flood. A man stood amid the rubble of homes in the village of Zahel.

I find a lot of sadness in this picture. If you see the full diaporama, it starts with a "happy" picture, though holding a lot of sadness. The viewer can only understand the meaning behind the picture if he or she reads the caption. The sixth picture of the slideshow (there are a total of twelve pictures) shows more despair and distress in the angle and in the people. There are more visual correlations between the captions and the pictures in the second half. This picture, intitled A man stood amid the rubble of homes in the village of Zahel, is the exact opposite of the first picture. The viewer learns nothing new from the caption, because the picture, to me, is worth a thousand words. I find interesting the evolution of the pictures and the captions, and this last piece sriked to me as some kind of grand finale to the report.