12 incredible images from the 2018 World Press Photo Contest

Tour of winning images to make four Canadian stops, starting July 20 at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa

Jul 19, 2018
801 words
4 minutes

By Alexandra Pope

Scarlet ibises fly above flooded lowlands, near Bom Amigo, Amapá, Brazilian Amazon.

“Photography furnishes evidence,” Susan Sontag wrote in On Photography. “Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we’re shown a photograph of it.”

In our highly connected age, when it can be difficult to tell the “fake news” from the real, photojournalism is all the more important for the stories it is able to tell about human cruelty, resilience, passion and prejudice.

Now in its 61st year, the World Press Photo Contest recognizes the best in photojournalism from the previous year. Prizes are awarded for the best single image or series of images depicting people, nature, sports, general news, spot news and contemporary issues. This year, the judges reviewed more than 73,000 entries by 4,548 different photographers from 125 countries. World Press Photo of the Year was awarded to Venezuelan photographer Ronaldo Schemidt for his photo of a protestor who caught fire while demonstrating against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro on May 3, 2017.

The 2018 contest featured a new category, Environment, documenting the impact, positive or negative, of human activity on the planet. South African photographer Neil Aldridge won first place in the Environment – Singles category for his photo of a southern white rhinoceros awaiting release into the Okavango Delta in Botswana, while Dutch photographer Kadir van Lohuizen won first place in the Environment – Stories category for his series Wasteland, depicting how different countries around the world manage their waste.

One Canadian was among the winners this year. Kevin Frayer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist known for his wartime work in the Middle East, won second place in the General News – Stories category for his images depicting Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar.

From July 20 to August 12, the winning images will be exhibited in the Barney Danson Theatre at the Canadian War Museum, the first of four Canadian stops on the contest’s world tour.

“World Press Photo – Exhibition 2018 is a dramatic overview of the year’s most newsworthy events and human experiences,” says Caroline Dromaguet, Acting Director General of the Canadian War Museum. “We are honoured to present this display of the world’s best photojournalism for an 11th consecutive year.”

Here’s a look at some of this year’s winning images.

Lagos Waterfronts under Threat © Jesco Denzel, laif

A boat with tourists from Lagos Marina is steered through the canals of the Makoko community—an ancient fishing village that has grown into an enormous informal settlement—on the shores of Lagos Lagoon, Lagos, Nigeria. Makoko has a population of around 150,000 people, many of whose families have been there for generations. But Lagos is growing rapidly, and ground to build on is in high demand. Prime real estate along the lagoon waterfront is scarce, and there are moves to demolish communities such as Makoko and build apartment blocks: accommodation for the wealthy. (Photo: Jesco Denzel, Germany, Laif)

Feeding China, George Steinmetz for National Geographic

Thousands of people converge on Xuyi County, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, China for an annual crayfish festival. Rapidly rising incomes in China have led to a changing diet and increasing demand for meat, dairy and processed foods. China needs to make use of some 12 percent of the world’s arable land to feed nearly 19 per cent of the global population. New technologies and agricultural reform offer a partial solution, but problems remain as farmers and the young flock to work in cities, leaving an aging rural population, and as land becomes contaminated by industry. (Photo: George Steinmetz for National Geographic)

A young southern white rhinoceros, drugged and blindfolded, is about to be released into the wild in Okavango Delta, Botswana, after its relocation from South Africa for protection from poachers. Southern white rhinos are classified as ‘near threatened’. Rhinoceros horn is highly prized, especially in Vietnam and China, for its perceived medicinal properties, and in places is used as a recreational drug. Horns can fetch between €20,000 and €50,000 per kilogram. Poaching in South Africa rose from 13 rhinos a year in 2007 to a peak of 1,215 in 2014, and although these figures have declined slightly since then, losses are still unsustainable. Botswana is saving rhinos from poaching hotspots in South Africa and re-establishing populations in its own wildlife sanctuaries. (Photo: Neil Aldridge, South Africa)

A barge with more than 300 tonnes of mainly plastic is on its way from the Bronx to a recycling plant in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Until the mid-1990s, New York’s primary method of disposing of waste was to dump it at sea. Humans are producing more waste than ever before. According to research by the World Bank, the world generates 3.5 million tonnes of solid waste a day, ten times the amount of a century ago. (Photo: Kadir van Lohuizen, the Netherlands, NOOR Images)