World Press Photo 2006 Exhibition
Spent an hour during lunchtime earlier this week wandering around the photo exhibition at the State Library. With full captioning and large format prints, it’s a much different experience to checking them out online. The photographs are all quite amazing, especially when you try and imagine what was happening around the photographer when they took the shot. The exhibition is spread across three rooms, and it’s interesting the general mood created by each room. The first room has a lot of sports photographs – mostly bright, cheery, inspirational and humourous shots. The middle room is a lot more sombre, with photographs from major news stories. The aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. Hurricane Katrina. The Pakistan earthquake. The London bombings. And lots and lots of woe from Africa – both civil unrest and natural disasters. There’s also disturbing series about Guatemalan youth gangs, including a shot with a decapitated head lying on a floor. The third room has the portraiture, arts and entertainment, and daily life categories – photos which balance it all out.
The exhibition is free and is well worth a visit before it closes at the end of the month. You’ll need about an hour.
12:30am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow 
