Press Photo Exhibition highlights stories of conflict 

Photo Taken By: Hana Nadeem

AUC’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communication has curated an exhibition of public entries from the Egypt Press Photo Competition. This year, the gallery focused on presenting a selection of both Egypt’s winning and non-winning photojournalistic photos. The gallery focuses on photo stories and individual press shots, and was from February 15 to March 14 at the Photographic Gallery in Jameel Building.

The Egypt Press Photo is an established annual competition for national photojournalism in Egypt. This year marks its 18th edition, which is coordinated by the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate and overseen by the Journalists’ Photographers Division.

Through powerful imagery, the exhibition aimed to shed light on the experiences of individuals affected by the Gaza and Sudan conflicts, emphasizing the crucial role of media coverage in drawing attention to significant global issues. 

For their second collaboration, the Journalists Syndicate and the gallery have chosen to present a selection of both Egypt’s winning and non-winning photojournalistic photos, in contrast to last year’s edition, which focused solely on the winning photos. 

The Press Photo’s curator Dina ElDeeb told The Caravan that this year’s exhibition focuses on photo stories and spot news ott allow students to understand the main events that took place in 2023. It is divided into four sections; the Gaza, the Sudan and Yemen wars, as well las the destruction that took place in historic Cairo and the power outages. 

His award-winning photograph captures the face of an infant who traveled from Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital to an incubator in Cairo and survived. He needed an urgent transfer after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) targeted Al-Shifa Hospital and every other hospital in Gaza, sparking worldwide indignation and accusations that Israel was committing genocide and violating international law. 

The exhibition also featured photographs covering the Sudanese civil war taken by photojournalist Lobna Tarek. Tarek is also a photo-editor and photographer for the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (German News Agency), and won fifth place in the photo-story category.

The photos are a testament to the war that erupted in Sudan in April 2023, which has killed approximately 10,000 – 15,000 people in Darfur, and on which there is insufficient worldwide funding and minimal media coverage of it.

Tarek said that the goal was to raise awareness about what happens in Sudan because after the war in Gaza, the media spot for Sudan’s events has significantly declined.