Monday, March 7, 2011

Potrait of a disfugured Afghanistan woman, won the 2010 World Press Photo Award

A personal tragedy depicted in a potrait of a young and beautiful but disfigured 18 year old Afghanistan woman, Bibi Aisha by a South African photographer, Jodi Bieber (not related to Justin Bieber) has won the 2010 World Photography Award.











The potrait shows the 18 year old Afghanistan woman, Bibi Aisha, disfigured, without nose and both ears.

She was punished by the Islamic hardliners, The Taliban, purpotedly for abandoning her marital home.

This extra-ordinary and shocking picture was taken by South African Photographer, Jodi Bieber and has appeared in countless magazines including the Time magazine.

This potrait won the 2010 World Press Photo award, beating more than 108,000 images submitted by close to 6,000 photographers around the world.

First appearing on the front page of Time Magazine on August 1, 2010, Bieber's photograph shows Bibi Aisha staring into the lense, her nose and ears hacked off by members of the Taliban who accused her of abandoning her abusive husband.

"This could become one of those pictures -- and we have maybe just 10 in our lifetime -- where if somebody says: 'you know, that picture of a girl', you know exactly which one they're talking about," jury chairman David Burnett was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the awards committee.

Aisha had fled back to her family home complaining of violent treatment at the hands of her husband.

The shot of the 18-year-old, her black shoulder-length hair partly covered by a purple headscarf, also won in the category "Portraits".

After she was disfigured, Aisha was rescued by aid workers and American soldiers and later underwent reconstructive surgery in the United States, where she now lives.

This picture bore chilling reminder of the plight of another world famous Afghanistan woman photo called the Afghan Girl.





The world famous potrait photo of Sharbat Gula was taken by Steve McCurry at a refugee camp in Pakistan, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and appeared on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic Magazine.

Sharbat Gula was known throughout the world simply as "the Afghan Girl" until she was formally identified in early 2002.

Meanwhile Frenchman Laban-Mattei won the category "General Information" with a photo series on the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.


One of his pictures shows a man throwing the corpse of a dead child onto a pile of dead bodies at a hospital morgue. Sorry for the graphic image.



His compatriot Christophe Archambault came third in the category "Nature" for a series on the erupting volcano Bromo, in Java, Indonesia.

Organisers said a record number of 108,059 images was submitted for this year's contest. A total of 5,847 photographers took part, representing 125 different nationalities.

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