The World Press Photo contest, launched in 1955, is open to professional photographers around the world working in the field of journalism or documentary photography. An international jury selects the winning photos for an annual travelling exhibit, which for many years has included Montréal. I went to see the 2024 exhibit when I heard that a photographer from Canada, Charles Frédérick Ouellet, was the winner in the North and Central American Single Photograph category for his photo, “A Day in the Life of a Quebec Fire Crew.” Please do click the link to see the photograph. It is devastating and beautiful, at once.
While you’re there, on the World Press Photo website, if you want to take a look around, you can find the archives by decade and by year, which include some iconic photographs (the photo of the solo demonstrator in Tianamen Square by the late Charlie Cole is perhaps one of most recognisable). I spent an hour or so looking through their online archives and I think my favourite exhibit year was 2014, in particular the photos by: Allesandro Penso (general news category), John Stanmeyer (contemporary issues category), Kunrong Chen (sports feature category) and Tyler Hicks (spot news category). Photos from other years that drew me in included: François Lochon (general news category, 1982), Robert Black (daily life category, 1984), Lara Jo Regan (daily life category, 2001), Sergey Maximishin (daily life category, 2006), Denis Rouvre (portrait category, 2012), and Amber Bracken (single photo category, 2022).
I mention so many of these photographers by name because although we see the work of photojournalists every day, their names aren’t often front and centre. I am thankful to them. For what they do. For what they must go through to capture what they capture on film. To tell stories that we otherwise might never see or hear or know.
Thank you, photojournalists out there.
Montréal is just the third city on the international tour for the current exhibit, It’s in Montréal until October 14th and if you’re in Canada, it’s coming soon to Toronto and Chicoutimi. Elsewhere, the exhibit tours on six continents and in more than 40 cities.
a few words ... from Montréal 