This week saw the start of the World Press Photo 2002 exhibition in London. The exhibition began its worldwide tour in April 2002 and will have been shown in over 35 countries by the time next year's winners are announced (see link at the bottom of this article for a venue near you).

The photographs are a superb collection of major news events and other more photo-journalistic thought-provoking images shot during 2001. The temptation could have been to dominate the exhibition with 9/11 pictures - after all this was one of the big stories of the last 50+ years and probably the most photographed news item ever. But no, WPP has presented a well balanced exhibition that covers sporting moments, such as Tiger Woods teeing off in the Masters tournament through to Turbo golf from roof tops. It also covers life saving surgery pictures to a Bangkok cosmetic surgery waiting room. Of course 9/11 is represented, the photographs bring back the full horror of that day. You can be forgiven for feeling uncomfortable whilst looking at giant prints of people falling to their death from the burning tower. Contrast this with Erik Refners’ compassionate winning shot of a dead one year old Afghan boy being prepared for burial. Refners' powerful collection of pictures on the plight of the Afghanistan refugees shows that the photo essay still has the power to carry the message.

The WPP exhibition opens your eyes to the realities of life, you can stand in front of each picture and absorb as much, or as little as you want. Either way you won’t walk away without having been touched in one form or another.

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The evening included a speech by Mike Bealing, picture editor of Time Magazine, Europe, who has kindly emailed me a full copy of his speech to share with you.

This year is the first that TIME has been associated with WPP and, in my opinion, it's long overdue.  TIME has always been a champion of photojournalism and it is fitting that we should be here this evening to honour the great photography of the last year. We are proud to be involved with this years event and I hope this will be the first of many opportunities which we have to lend our support to the work carried out by WPP- the world’s greatest showcase for the art of press photography.

This morning's newspapers are a clear example of the power of great news photography. Huge full-page photos from Ground Zero and the Pentagon adorn the world's front pages, many papers using several photo-led pages inside. The images are moving, and a testament to the how a photo is, to coin a phrase, worth a thousand words. But today's papers aren't necessarily representative of the industry.

It’s a sad fact that there are fewer and fewer publications which carry the sort of work we will see here this evening. In a world where celebrity is King, newspapers and magazines are dominated by Reality TV shows, Pop Stars, C-List Actors and minor Royalty, while the world’s less fashionable conflicts, famines and disasters go largely unreported- STILL LESS photographed.  Foreign coverage have been cut, while Lifestyle sections grow. After September 11^th this changed somewhat- but in a week when the world held it's breath for an invasion of Iraq, Disc Jockeys winning Reality Game shows still make the front pages, and not just the tabloids.

“Dumb it Down” seems to be the battle cry. If you believe the accountants and style gurus that now seem to be running our industry readers want to be titillated and  distracted and the more fatuous the message  the better.

WELL,,, SAYS WHO? I can tell you that in the UK over the past 20 years sales of all newspapers and magazines have nearly halved. THAT’S what dumbing down has achieved in my backyard - and I suspect that it’s the same for you all. The reader’s reaction is to keep his pound - or his Euro - firmly in his pocket.  Fortunately, TIME Magazine and those few like it around the world, have bucked this trend and still believe in real photography.

I am glad to say that those of you in the news front line still have the opportunity to place your work in our pages confident in the knowledge it will get the show it deserves. This, of course isn't an open invitation to all and sundry to dump ANY old rubbish on me, but we DO take photography seriously and are always open to suggestion. ALTHOUGH, if the photographer IS here who offered me the set on the Darts Tournament in Hull,  I'll let you know.

It goes without saying that, for over a century, photojournalists have been responsible for capturing the most memorable moments in our history:  If I was to mention the Soviet flag atop of the Reichstag, or the raising of the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima, the Assassination of Oswald right up to the horrific events of a year ago, images immediately spring to mind. Not only is the importance of our work clear to us, but there is no doubt of the power of News Photography in the eyes of the general public. Photographers have changed public opinion, and in some cases, Government policy. Some of the images you will see this evening come from that terrible day in Manhattan a year ago. These images are indelibly ingrained in the minds of people all over the world.

Unfortunately it was a year dominated by war and catastrophe.

When the war in Afghanistan began, photographers armed with little more than a fist full of dollars, an EOS and a Sat-phone joined the Northern Alliance forces and sent back regular batches of images of what often seemed a primitive war. Emailed attachments sent from fox-holes yards from the front line appeared all in reports all over the world. How our world has changed in such a short space of time! It wasn’t long ago that courier companies were kept busy with delivering bagfuls of film back to newspaper offices, often taking days or weeks for the film to return.  15 years ago, batteries to a portable wire-machine were bigger than a columnist's pay-packet. Now whole shoots are sent in seconds , rather than the 21 minutes it took to send one colour image . The digital age has certainly allowed us immediate access to some of the more distant parts of the planet.

But you don’t have to travel far from the office to produce a great essay. Many of us in the UK still remember the extraordinarily moving images from the foot-and-mouth epidemic,  and Jeff Mitchell's essay deservedly won this years Stories Category.

And less I leave you with the impression that it’s been all been doom-and-gloom, I urge you to take a look at the great sports and arts imagery on show: Tiger Teeing off, Australian iron Men in competition, an artist and his extraordinary giant sculpture of a boy  . I was particularly impressed with the images of Turbo Golfers who play NOT ON COURSES, but from rooftop to rooftop in urban areas.- SOUNDS a great idea, unless you happen to be hanging out the washing when a Titleist zings past your ears.

The fact of the matter is that there is so much good photography out there, and I know that Roger and his team had such a hard time whittling it down to what you see before you. I’d be particularly interested to know the effects on the jury to wading through all the material from 9/11. I know from my own experience at the time, that after two days I was numb from looking at pictures of so much carnage.

Finally, a word about the winner. Erik Refner. This is perhaps a PRIME example of a young man who through persistence and research, persuaded his editor to let him travel to a, then, unfashionable part of the world for newspapers to be covering. The result being him having the opportunity to produce such fine work. The winning photograph was obviously taken at a very delicate time in a situation where all a photographer's candour and sensibility would have to be employed.  I once talked to a photographer who had returned from shooting the famine in Sudan who told me that the enormity of the situation didn't hit him until he was back home going through his negs. I wonder if Erik experienced the same?

ABOVE ALL  it should encourage you here to badger/harass or  bribe by any legal means, your Editors and Picture Editors to commission you for  similar trips. Celebrity Photocalls are not, and never have been, what this business is all about- certainly not what I came into it for anyway.

Text © Mike Bealing 2002

The World Press Photo 2002 can be seen at -

The Royal Festival Hall
Level 2, Main Foyer
South Bank, London SE1
Opening hours: 10.00 am – 10.30 pm daily. Admission free

13 September – 13 October 2002

http://www.worldpressphoto.nl/exhibitions.jsp

World Press Photo 2002 exhibition page