The world around us
The ninth Xposure International Photography Festival, which closed in Sharjah on February 26, showcased the power of visual storytelling. These images, our selection from the festival, capture the depths of disaster, conflict and despair, but also moments of resilience, humanity and hope.
DON McCULLIN
Don McCullin is one of the greatest living photographers, renowned for his five-decade career covering war, poverty and suffering with unparalleled compassion. Here, a Turkish defender leaves the side entrance of a cinema in Limassol, Cyprus in 1964. McCullin had been sent to cover the island’s civil war.
HORACIO VILLALOBOS
Horacio Villalobos is an Argentinian photographer. Some of his most important work includes the Chilean coup d’état of 1973, where he took the last image of President Salvador Allende alive. Here, coup leader General Augusto Pinochet is flanked by Admiral Toribio Merino and Air Force General Leigh.
MEHMET ASLAN
On February 6, 2023, a powerful earthquake rocked southeastern Turkey and severely impacted Antakya, the hometown of photographer Mehmet Aslan. His exhibition documented the aftermath of the earthquake and the hardships people faced. His photographs depict a disaster, but also resilience.
VERONIQUE DE VIGUERIE
Veronique de Viguerie is a French photographer who strives to deconstruct a binary vision of a world in black and white. Even in conflict zones, she says, there are graceful moments, vibrant with life and humanity. In this 2022 image, students at Kabul University are enjoying a break. Three weeks later, they will be banned from attending it.
MARTIN STRANKA
Martin Stranka is a contemporary fine art photographer, acclaimed for the emotional depth, symbolic richness, and aesthetic sophistication of his work. His images, characterised by a dreamlike quality, explore the fragile boundary between reality and imagination. This image, Until You Wake Up (2017).
DAVID GIBBON
Wildlife photographer David Gibbon specialises in photographing in the arctic and polar regions. He has made many visits to the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve in the far north of Iceland. Globally, the blue morph Arctic Fox is rare. But in Iceland, over 80% of the Arctic Fox are blue. It is the country’s only native land mammal.
FRANCK GAZZOLA
Franck Gazzola is an adventure and documentary photographer who works in some of the most hostile environments, including deep underwater with the oceanic explorers of Under the Pole, founded by Ghislain Bardout and Emmanuelle Périé-Bardout. In this 2019 image, taken in Moorea, Ghislain and Emmanuelle have built an observatory from which to study the oceans for several days at a time, testing human physiological limits.
SEBASTIAN COPELAND
climate analyst. His exhibition, The Vanishing, chronicles over 25 years of Arctic travel. Qumangaapik is a young Inughuit hunter from Qaanaaq, a small community in a fjord in northern Greenland. He was trained as a child to read the land like his elders.
GERD LUDWIG
Gerd Ludwig is a documentary photographer best known for his coverage of the aftermath of the Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe. In this 2005 image, workers in heavy protective gear pause briefly on their way to drill holes inside the sarcophagus. The radiation is so high that they are allowed only one 15-minute stay per day.
