Press

Adam Ferguson, Australia

Two days ago, I went to the World Press Photo Exhibition 2010 that was held in the beautiful Art Nouveau building of Smith & Caugheys. I knew it would be an excellent exhibition. It is in such exhibits that every photo is EPIC, there is no space for pushing around your food, or hesitating over killing a fly. In a way, 'high end' journalist photography is a brutal sort of art.

And as per the photo by Adam Ferguson, which was printed on every leaflet for the exhibition, most of the photos are windows into the life of others. A cliché expression, I know. But when you think that whole worlds, in time as much as space, is framed by this medium, you begin to wonder what is beyond that frame. And of course, I read into the details, as I do for everything; the most trivial can become the most significant.

Here is a glimpse of the exhibition, the images and placement of each etched into my mind: a great amount of middle eastern warfare; oranges in China, affected by toxic waste, creating stunningly abstract photos if nothing else; a pretty boy, admiring his chest after a waxing treatment; a boy recovered from anorexia, a rare thing in males; sport, including tribal rites from Africa; explicit pictures of someone stoned to death with peculiar white stones; an iridescent white beach in the UK; a slaughterhouse; a mother hugging her headless son.

The exhibition closes soon but to all those who went to it, I'm sure it has imparted a great deal of the holistic world to their body of knowledge.