The world’s most award-winningest palestinian photographer just picked up another couple of gongs.
Agence France Presse photojournalist Mahmoud Al-Hams has won two prizes for his war photography in international competitions in the US and Japan.
Al-Hams, from the Gaza Strip, was awarded third place in the “Days of Japan International Photo Awards” for a series of eight photos. One of the winning photographs was of an Israeli missile launched from an F16 fighter jet landing on the police headquarters of the Hamas-affiliated Executive Force in the central Gaza Strip in May 2007. Other photographs in the series were taken during funeral processions of Palestinian victims of Israeli bombardments. The final photograph of the series was of a Palestinian man embracing his son in a hospital ward. (notice a theme? – ed.)
The photograph of the Israeli air-to-land missile falling towards the police headquarters also won a prize in a competition in Missouri University in the United States.
The Days of Japan award is of little interest when considering the purpose of this award.
The monthly photojournalism magazine DAYS JAPAN was launched in March 2004 in response to the burgeoning demand for quality reporting from the world’s many war fronts and conflicts that claim so many lives today. The world-class photographers who contributed to our publication do their work at great peril, many risking their lives for their shots. Regardless of how the photos are taken, however, DAYS JAPAN aims to tell the truth from the perspective of victimized civilians and not of those exercising authority through military or other power.
What is of more interest is the prize “in a competition in Missouri University in the United States.”
I assume this is a reference to the 65th Annual Pictures of the Year International competition, held at the Missouri School of Journalism, although a brief check of the award winners list does not support the claim of another Al-Hams win. So either my assumption is incorrect (and there are coincidentally other international photo awards at a Missouri university), I was careless in checking the award winners list, or Ma’an is lying.
Not that I would be totally surprised they would select such a blatantly biased photographer. For instance, check out the work of the Newspaper Photographer of the Year.
