Thursday, January 22, 2009

Misery in Darfur (Sudan)



It's an image which depicts a depressed, shoulders-down figure of a child in a cluster of what remains of her family.
The very weather-beaten arm of her mother goes over her left shoulder and there are the very small weather-beaten hands of the child, who is about five or six, clinging on to this one piece of security that she has, which is the weather-beaten hand of her mother.
The mother is not in the image, she's in the background. But then slightly further in the background you see the other hands of her brothers and sisters as they wait in this villa
ge. 
Taken by Marcus Bleasdale.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Flames of Hate (South Africa)



On 18 May 2008 Halden Krog was covering the xenophobic violence that had been sweeping South Africa.
Photographers had been working day and night as bands of thugs terrorized settlements - beating, stabbing and torching the homes of residents whose only crime was being a "foreigner" while the politicians and leaders were silent - none of them standing up to condemn what was happening. 

It was late afternoon when Krog heard  that someone had been set alight in Ramaphosa (east of Johannesburg). At the scene, he saw Mozambican national Ernesto Nhamwuave struggling beneath a burning mattress as emergency service workers and police tried to extinguish the flames. 

Upon publication, outrage swept across a nation that we were once again seeing intolerance and brutality that many believed should have remained in the country’s Apartheid past. 

During the late eighties and early nineties, South Africans had become desensitized to endless images of violence and by the time of Nelson Mandela’s inauguration in 1994 people were only too ready to believe him when he said: "Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another." But 14 years later the nation was seeing it repeated. 

Nhamwuave died in hospital later that afternoon. His body was transported to his home in Mozambique.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Palestinian Woman Pleads with Soldier (Lebanon)



World Press Photo of the Year: 1976

Françoise Demulder took this photograph of Palestinian refugees in the Beirut district of La Quarantaine, Lebanon in January 1976.
She was the first woman to win the World Press Photo, and did so on the 20th anniversary of the award. Demulder stated at the time that she hated war, but felt compelled to document how it’s always the innocent who suffer, while the powerful get richer and richer.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Betty Grable (USA)



Grable’s million-dollar legs were the subject of the most-seen pinup sent to ease the suffering of American troups during World War II.
Betty's ingratiating freshness and beauty appealed strongly to the American G.I.s stationed overseas and her films were eagerly requested by the lonely servicemen. . . . Although she never toured outside the United States for the U.S.O., Betty actively participated in War efforts, appearing at Camps across the country and at Bond Rallys where she auctioned off her nylons for thousands of dollars.
Volunteering at the Hollywood Canten, a club for servicement staffed entirely by film stars and studio workers, she 'Jitterbugged' the night away with hundreds of soldiers, sailors and marines".
She married bandleader Harry James July 5, 1943. A popular GI slogan during the war became " I want a girl just like the girl that married Harry James."
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