TIME’s Photo Department faces a daunting task every year as it shuffles through millions of powerful photographs to determine the best and most dynamic photographer on the wires. This year, they honor Italian-born Marco Longari, the Jerusalem-based chief photographer for Agence-France Presse (AFP) who in just the last few months covered the revolution in Syria, the Israeli shelling of Gaza, and the persistent protests in Cairo.
His photographic tour through the Middle East took viewers on a journey of shifting political landscapes. But he focused on the human aspect of these turbulent times and managed to tell important stories. As the TIME Photo Department so aptly writes, “Longari made picture after picture this year that mattered.”
In an interview with TIME, Longari shared what he calls “the most humbling lesson in compassion” he’s experienced in his entire career. He arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City just after an Israeli air strike. Waiting to photograph the ensuing chaos, he phoned his family currently staying in Jerusalem but the line was cut. He managed to compose himself but the unease was still there. That’s when he felt the burden that Palestinians face on a daily basis.
Here are a small selection of his photographs. The rest can be found here.
Optimism and cynicism surrounding Egypt’s first elected leader
Mohammed Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood “mediocrity” (as Robert Fisk so nonchalantly puts it), was declared Egypt’s first ever democratically-elected President this Sunday in a dramatic conclusion to an even more dramatic election. And while Mursi might indeed be nothing more than mediocre, his victory is at the helm of the discourse in Egypt, Palestine, and even Israel. What does his win mean and what will it bring?
Mursi’s victory wasn’t necessarily expected, for me at least. After all, the military junta positioned high above Egypt’s political sphere shares more in common with Mursi’s counterpart Ahmed Shafik, a leftover from the old regime. But to rig an election with the whole world watching is a daunting task that would certainly have led to more blood on the streets. Mursi’s win, then, was also a blessing in one way or another.
Mursi once drove a tok tok, those three-wheeled motorcycle and wagon hybrids that have taken Gaza by storm. In parts of Egypt (and Gaza, too) the tok tok is a status symbol for the poor. It implies hard work, long hours, and low wages. In essence, Mursi can identify with the layers of underprivileged Egyptians who, for almost a century, struggled against the weighty “reforms” of previous regimes. I use the past tense (“struggled” instead of “struggle) for a reason: although the dismal socioeconomic condition for most of the Egyptian population isn’t going to miraculously turn around in the next few years, Mursi has given many a reason to believe that it can. [Read more...]