All posts tagged: libya

For Slovak daily Sme: Hafízova cesta: Príbeh jedného sýrskeho utečenca

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Hafízova cesta: Príbeh jedného sýrskeho utečenca September 25, 2015 Sýrčan Hafíz sa z Turecka až do Nemecka dostal pomerne jednoducho. Mal šťastie, dostatok peňazí a nevyzeral celkom ako Sýrčan. TEXT: Amanda Rivkin Hafíz pricestoval do nemeckého Norimbergu minulú jeseň predtým, ako sa v meste približne štyritisíc utečencov nasťahovalo do miestnych kempov a hotelov v meste a jeho okolí. V Damasku, odkiaľ je Hafíz, si predtým užíval život plný komfortu – pracoval ako mladý marketingový manažér a mal vlastný byt. Občianska vojna v Sýrii, ktorá prebieha už piaty rok, si vyžiadala životy asi 240-tisíc civilistov. Prevrátila na ruby aj Hafízov život. Nebezpečná Líbya Nemecko nebolo Hafízovou pôvodnou destináciou. Predtým, ako tam odišiel, zostal krátko v Istanbule. Neskôr dostal od svojho bývalého sýrskeho šéfa prácu v líbyjskom hlavnom meste Tripolis. Polovicu mesiaca strávil v kacenlárii v Tripolise a zvyšnú polovicu cestoval po krajine. Do bytu v Tripolise sa mu dvakrát vlámali ozbrojení lupiči. Pri prvom vlámaní prišiel o život jeho spolubývajúci. Pri tom druhom vtrhlo do Hafízovho domu niekoľko mužov vyzbrojených kalašnikovovmi. Hafíz prišiel o väčšinu cenností …

The Importance of Memory and World Press Photo’s “Contemporary Issues”

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“The struggle of man against power is the act of memory against forgetting.” -Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting I have my own personal reasons for choosing to photograph over other mediums, for believing that we must look sometimes even when we are more often compelled not to. The collective memory of societies around the world relies on aesthetics, whether represented through flags, leaders, advertising and propaganda or news photographs. Only the last can claim to attempt to accurately reflect the conditions of all citizens but especially the disenfranchised, even if so often the focus is on podiums and the powerful. Earlier this month, World Press Photo announced the results of its annual competition. Shortly thereafter, the mayor of the Belgian city of Charleroi sent the Amsterdam-based foundation a letter stating his objections to an essay entitled “Dark Heart of Europe” that depicted his town as some sort of desolate sex-depraved locale where fetish and fantasy were expressions of current realities. Many of the scenes in the photographs were simply staged through a …

The Year in Pictures 2011: Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Czech Republic, Azerbaijan and Turkey

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The Year in Pictures 2011 The annus horribilis of 2011 is coming to a close – a year that will go down as one of dramatic upheaval and revolution alongside 1789, 1848, 1917, 1989, and now, this year. In Egypt, young revolutionaries overthrew the government of Hosni Mubarak after 31 years of subservience to a one-party state bolstered by an omnipresent muhabarata, or secret service, further bolstered by an overreaching military, after Egyptians witnessed similar events in Tunisia lead to the removal of that country’s former leader Ben Ali. Consequently, the domino theory made a surprise return as events in Egypt triggered revolts elsewhere in Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Of these, only Libya’s leader fell after rebels received aerial support from NATO war planes; Qaddafi was found hiding in a drainage canal near his hometown of Sirte (or Surt, depending on your news source and spelling) and subsequently dragged through the streets, sodomized with a knife and otherwise tormented before being shot in the head. In the Libyan conflict three photographers lost their lives, …

Interview with Dan Reimold of College Media Matters for Forthcoming Journalism Text Book

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Recently, a query from Dan Reimold of College Media Matters/University of Tampa landed in my inbox, requesting an interview for a forthcoming journalism text book he is working on now that will offer advice and experience from journalists. With his permission, I am publishing the contents of our online interview, which was conducted from July 1-5, 2011: DAN REIMOLD. What are the best pieces of advice you have received or given about capturing quality photos? AMANDA RIVKIN. Most of the best macro-level advice I have received has been from photographers-turned-editors like Santiago Lyon, the Director of Photography at The Associated Press, who has spoken to me and many, many other young photographers about the difference between taking pictures and making a picture and thinking about the frames you are taking as opposed to merely clicking away. Other photographers have undoubtedly helped along the way and too many to name, but the best advice I have found is only pertinent when it is later engrained in experience. AR. The one time I talked with photographer Chris …

In Memoriam: Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington

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I am still at a loss for the enormous quantity of injuries to photojournalism in recent months, beginning for this generation with Emilio Morenatti of The Associated Press on August 12, 2009. An Associated Press account of the bomb “planted in the open desert terrain,” according to the American military, left Morenatti without his foot as he traveled in southern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border with AP Television News videographer Andi Jatmiko and a unit of the 5th Stryker Brigade. Again in southern Afghanistan, Joao Silva one of the four founding members of the famous group of South African photographers covering the end of apartheid known as “the Bang Bang club,” was hit by a mine and lost both legs, as reported October 23, 2010 by his employer The New York Times. This spring came the awful and surreal detentions of well known and intrepid New York Times conflict photographers Lynsey Addario and Tyler Hicks alongside reporters Anthony Shadid and Stephen Farrell in Libya. Then obviously and most recently came the tragic deaths a whole …

From the Archive: Being with “The Bad Guy” on a Big Day

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Qaddafi is a topic of conversation in and of himself, and his family an entirely separate discussion as well. He is the center of gravity of his own regime, naturally. The U.S. has announced it is not engaging in regime change (although not quite in those words), but has struck the compound where he resides with a missile. On another war front, Der Spiegel has announced to an e-mail list of its subscribers that in its print edition to hit news stands tomorrow, it will publish three images of U.S. soldiers posing with dead Afghan civilians. The Washington Post writes, “The photos are among several hundred the Army has sought to keep under wraps as it prosecutes five members of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, for the alleged murders of three unarmed Afghan civilians last year.” The consequences may prove more devastating than the Abu Ghraib scandal. The Guardian follows up with additional details about a dozen members of the unit, already on trial in Seattle and confronting life in prison or the …