It’s not often that the winning World Press Photo means so many different things as this one from John Stanmeyer. His photo shows a group of African migrants at night on the coast of Djibouti city, a magnet for migrants making their way to Europe from Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea. They’re holding up their phones in the hope of picking up a cheap network, so they can call their families over the border. The photo is a picture of poverty and despair. The poverty-stricken African migrants on the beach will do anything to use the signal from a provider in neighboring Somalia to talk to their families for a small payment. The photo also shows the universal desire of people to keep in tough with those who are near and dear to them.
The British photographer and jury chairman Gary Knight says this may be the most optimistic winning photo in the history of the World Press Photo. “It’s a photo of people in a desperate situation, but the message that emerges from it is a positive one. They’re looking for contact with the world.”
This year 98,671 photo’s were submitted by 5,703 photographers of 130 nationalities. These are the best press photos of the past year, and each one of them has a different story behind it.
World Press Photo is supported by the National Postcode Lottery and is sponsored worldwide by Canon and TNT.