The photo above was taken by John Stanmeyer and is the 57th World Press Photo of the Year. I found it to be particularly interesting and well selected, as it is a rather untypical photo for this type of award. That is if you only look at the picture.
We see the silhouettes of a couple of persons standing in front of a stretch of water. All but one are having their back facing at us, some of them are raising their smartphones in the sky. One person's pointed towards us, its profile is illuminated as if she or he is holding a dim light source in front of the face.
If we leave it at that, I would expect them to be taking pictures of the moon, which could be some sort of metaphor for the more recent social phenomenon of visually documenting everything around us. I found this to be especially present at concerts, where back in the days people would have waved their lighters, whereas nowadays we use our smartphones to make pictures or videos from the stage. Until recently, photography was forbidden and cameras weren't allowed on the premises during a concert, however due to the decreased size of excellent cameras and the revolution of Smartphones, which basically gives almost everybody a picture-taking device at hand, this policy has pretty much became useless. At least that's my impression.
The thing is, it's not really about the picture. Similar to the photo above, it is the documentation that is important, that we were at that specific place at that specific time doing that specific thing. Our food instagrams are there to, well, document what we eat, to give you another example. It's nothing more and nothing less. Given that we carry a camera everywhere allows us to document our lives not just with words but with photos as well. Susie Linfield, one of the jurors of the World Press Photo, describes it as „We are all connected... but even though all have phones, they are still very isolated.”
This is my interpretation and explanation on why I find this photo to be successful. However, I intentionally left the caption out and provide at this point:
26 February 2013, Djibouti City, Djibouti African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at night, raising their phones in an attempt to capture an inexpensive signal from neighboring Somalia—a tenuous link to relatives abroad. Djibouti is a common stop-off point for migrants in transit from such countries as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking a better life in Europe and the Middle East.
And now the perception comes into play, again. Without the caption I would have naturally assumed that the persons depicted are taking photos, however they're raising their smartphones in order to get a better reception respectively signal. Photos always depict just a fraction of the reality. Only a small part of the caption really applies to the photo itself, everything else is added context. It's a prime example of the expectations we have in modern photojournalism, and it is up the photographer, if and to what extent he wants to fulfill them.
Copyright: Photo ©John Stanmeyer, USA, VII for National Geographic
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World Press Photo Contest 2014 / VII Photo’s John Stanmeyer wins 57th World Press Photo of the Year / Dignity and hope – Susie Linfield on the World Press Photo