Inflammatory photograph wins prize
The picture in this post is my screen capture from a video (which I learned from the article linked below was shot by al-Jazeera - who else?), but the still photograph of the event has been honored in an international photography competition for the “spot news” photo of the year. The dramatic photo of a boy being thrown onto the hood of Be’eri’s car earned Ilia Yefimovich, a photographer for the Russian News Agency Itar-Tass, an award of excellence. The final winners of the Pictures of the Year International competition will be announced on February 23.I'd bet that if they had no expectation of photographers showing up, there would be a lot fewer stones thrown. Does anyone really believe that the kid below isn't being encouraged by all the photographers?
Yefimovich said he wasn’t surprised that his photo was cited, because “it so perfectly captured the moment” in an otherwise “lame” year of news in Israel.
The photo was greeted with suspicion around the world, with many accusing Yefimovich and the other photographers of “setting up” the situation, and even encouraging the youths to throw rocks so they would have something to photograph.
“I went to Silwan every week for the past eight months, every single Friday,” he told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
“So it’s not like, ‘Whoa, what were the journalists doing there?’ They send us to these places because things happen here.
“I pass there lots of times, and kids throw stones not because photographers are coming to shoot them, they do it because they want to do it.
You can see them not just on Friday, but on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, morning, noon, and night.”
Yefimovich added that rocks were thrown at his own car on the way to Silwan that day, without any photographers present.
Labels: David Beeri, Ilia Yefimovich, news photography, Silwan
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:47 PM
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