Nominees in the 2018 World Press Photo Contest

Nominees in the 2018 World Press Photo Contest

• Alan Taylor
• The Atlantic, Feb 15, 2018
                    

The top images being considered to win awards in the 61st annual World Press Photo Contest ​have just been released, with the final announcement of the winners coming on April 12. Jury members selected the nominees in eight categories, including the new environment category, from submissions made by 42 photographers hailing from 22 countries. World Press Photo has been kind enough to allow us to share some of this year’s nominees here with you. A warning: some viewers may find some of the images disturbing.

                                                                                        

• 1. Nominee, World Press Photo of the Year, 2018. Aisha, age 14, stands for a portrait in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria on September 21, 2017. Aisha was kidnapped by Boko Haram then assigned a suicide-bombing mission. After she was strapped with explosives, she found help instead of blowing herself and others up. #

  Adam Ferguson / The New York Times
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• 2. Nominee, World Press Photo of the Year, 2018. An unidentified young boy who was carried out of the last ISIS-controlled area in the Old City by a man suspected of being a militant is cared for by Iraqi Special Forces soldiers. The soldiers suspected the man had used the boy as a human shield in order to try and escape, as he did not know the child's name and claimed he had just found him alone in the street. one of the soldiers agreed to adopt the boy given that they knew nothing about him and he didn't speak. #

  Ivor Prickett / The New York Times

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  3. From the series Ich Bin Waldviertel, nominated in the Long Term Projects category. Hannah and Alena are two sisters living in the small village of Merkenbrechts in the Waldviertel, an isolated rural area in Austria between Vienna and the Czech Republic. The story documents summer days around Austria as the girls grow up over the years. #

  Carla Kogelman

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  4. From the series Feeding China, nominated in the Contemporary Issues category. Rapidly rising incomes in China have led to a changing diet and increasing demand for meat, dairy, and processed foods. The food and agricultural industries are under pressure. Here, an international crayfish festival held in Xuyi, China's Jiangsu Province. Thousands of people converge on Xuyi County every summer for the annual crayfish-eating festival. #

  George Steinmetz / National Geographic

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  5. From the series Feeding China, nominated in the Contemporary Issues category. COFCO's largest chicken facility processes 120 million chickens per year (today 200,000, pre-holiday periods up to 400,000) with over 2,000 employees working a single eight-hour shift. 90 percent of their chicken is for domestic consumption, and 10 percent for other parts of Asia. All chickens are raised on COFCO farms and fed a mixture of corn, soybean meal, wheat husks, and fish powder. All parts of the chickens are used; even the chicken fat is used in paint, and the feathers are processed into powder for animal food. The internal organs, feet, and heads are sold for human consumption. #

  George Steinmetz / National Geographic

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  6. Nominee, World Press Photo of the Year, 2018. José Víctor Salazar Balza, 28, catches fire amid violent clashes with riot police during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela. (The photographer later said Balza was recovering: "A few days afterward I saw him on social media, inviting people to continue the protests on the streets. I read he was recovering from his burns.") #

  Ronaldo Schemidt / Agence France-Presse 
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  7. Nominated in the Nature Singles category. Rockhopper penguins live up to their name as they navigate the rugged coastline of Marion Island, a South African Antarctic Territory in the Indian Ocean on April 18, 2017. #

  Thomas P. Peschak

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  8. From the series Kid Jockeys, nominated in the Sports Stories category. Child jockeys (aged five through 10) ride bareback, barefoot, and with little protective gear, on small horses, during traditional Maen Jaran horse races, on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia. #

  Alain Schroeder / Reporters

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  9. From the series Kid Jockeys, nominated in the Sports Stories category. After a day of racing, horses are taken for a cooling bath. All the kids in the neighborhood take advantage of the moment to play with the horses in the river. Here a young jockey playfully bonds with his horse outside the serious atmosphere of the racetrack. Child jockeys ride bareback, barefoot, and with little protective gear, on small horses, during traditional Maen Jaran horse races, on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia. #

  Alain Schroeder / Reporters

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  10. From the series Finding Freedom in the Water, nominated in the People Stories category. Kijini Primary School students learn to float, swim, and perform rescues on Tuesday, October 25, 2016, in the Indian Ocean off of Mnyuni, Zanzibar. Traditionally, girls in the Zanzibar archipelago are discouraged from learning how to swim. The Panje Project provides opportunities for local women and girls to learn swimming skills in full-length swimsuits, so that they can enter the water without compromising their cultural or religious beliefs. #

  Anna Boyiazis

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  11. From the series Finding Freedom in the Water, nominated in the People Stories category. Swim instructor Chema, 17, snaps her fingers as she disappears underwater on December 28, 2016, in Nungwi, Zanzibar. Traditionally, girls in the Zanzibar archipelago are discouraged from learning how to swim. The Panje Project provides opportunities for local women and girls to learn swimming skills in full-length swimsuits, so that they can enter the water without compromising their cultural or religious beliefs. #

  Anna Boyiazis
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• 12. Nominated in the Environment Singles category. A young white rhino, drugged and blindfolded, about to be released in Okavango Delta, Botswana, after its relocation from South Africa for protection from poachers on September 21, 2017. #

  Neil Aldridge
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• 13. From the series Omo Change, nominated in the Long Term Projects category. The Gibe III dam. At the moment, Gibe III is the highest dam in Central Africa, inaugurated in December 2016. The Omo Valley region in Ethiopia is an extremely fragile natural environment that is home to approximately 200,000 inhabitants of many diverse ethnic groups. This area is changing rapidly as a result of the construction of the Gibe III Dam, which is having a severe environmental and socio-economic impact on the region. #

  Fausto Podavini

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  14. From the series Omo Change, nominated in the Long Term Projects category. Along the shore of the Omo River near the Karo village, children play by jumping in the sand. The Karo village is located in a natural bight of the Omo River. Karos are a small tribe with an estimated population between 1,000 and 3,000 people, who survived thanks to fishing and farming made possible by the flooding of the Omo River. Currently, the river forest seen in the background has been demolished and replaced by an extensive cotton plantation owned by a foreign private company. Following the construction and commissioning of the Gibe III dam, the flooding of the Omo River has stopped, depriving the Karo population of the possibility of cultivating those products that today they’re forced to buy at the market. #

  Fausto Podavini
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  15. From the series The Boys and the

•  Bulls, nominated in the Sports Stories category. Despite the drop in popularity of bullfighting, young boys in Almeria, Spain, continue to learn skills at a local bullfighting school three times a week, and when they are not in the arena continue their efforts on the streets of the city. #         

  Nikolai Linares Larsen
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• 16. Nominee, World Press Photo of the Year, 2018. A passerby comforts an injured woman lying on the pavement after Khalid Masood drove his car into pedestrians, killing four in addition to a police officer at Westminster Bridge in London, England, on March 22, 2017. The injured woman, Melissa Cochran, an American tourist visiting with her husband, suffered a broken leg and a cut to her head, and returned to the United States after medical treatment. Her husband, Kurt Cochran, was one of the victims killed in the attack. #

  Toby Melville / Reuters

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  17. Nominated in the Sports Singles category. Members of opposing teams, the Up’ards and Down’ards, grapple for the ball during the historic, annual Royal Shrovetide Football Match in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, UK, on February 28, 2017. #

  Oli Scarff / Agence France-Presse

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  18. Nominated in the People Singles category. Djeneta (right) has been bedridden and unresponsive for two and a half years and her sister Ibadeta for more than six months, with uppgivenhetssyndrom (resignation syndrome), in Horndal, Sweden, on March 2, 2017. It is a condition believed to exist only among refugees in Sweden. #

  Magnus Wennman / Aftonbladet

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  19. Nominee, World Press Photo of the Year, 2018. Civilians who had remained in west Mosul during the battle to retake the city, lined up for an aid distribution in the Mamun neighborhood on March 15, 2017. After months of being trapped in the last remaining ISIS held areas of the city, the people in west Mosul were severely short on food and water. #

  Ivor Prickett / The New York Times

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  20. From the series Hunger Solutions, nominated in the Environment Stories category. Inside one of the biggest greenhouse in the world in the Netherlands, which looks like a render but is an indoor facility that provides optimal growing conditions for lettuce and other leafy greens. Innovative agricultural practice in the Netherlands has reduced dependency on water for key crops as well as dramatically reducing the use of chemical pesticides and antibiotics."Food Valley," an expansive cluster of agricultural technology start-ups and experimental farms, hints at possible solutions to the globe’s hunger crisis. #

  Luca Locatelli / National Geographic

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21. From the series Hunger Solutions, nominated in the Environment Stories category. Flying over the Westland in the Netherlands, the most advanced area in the world for agro-farming technology. Furrows of artificial light lend an otherworldly aura to the greenhouse. Climate-controlled farms such as these grow crops around the clock and in every kind of weather. #

Luca Locatelli / National Geographic

                                                                                                  

22. Nominated in the Contemporary Issues Singles category. Dr. Suporn Watanyusakul shows patient Olivia Thomas her new vagina after gender reassignment surgery at a hospital in Chonburi near Bangkok, Thailand, on February 3, 2017. #

Giulio Di Sturco

                                                                                                

23. Nominated in the General News Singles category. John Thompson is embraced in St. Anthony Village, Minnesota, after speaking out at a memorial rally for his close friend Philando Castile, two days after police officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of all charges in the shooting of Castile, on June 18, 2017. #

Richard Tsong-Taatarii

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24. Nominee, World Press Photo of the Year, 2018. The bodies of Rohingya refugees are laid out after the boat in which they were attempting to flee Myanmar capsized about eight kilometers off Inani Beach, near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on September 28, 2017. Around 100 people were on the boat before it capsized. There were 17 survivors. #

                                                                



25. From the series Warriors Who once Feared Elephants Now Protect Them, nominated in the Nature Stories category. Orphaned and abandoned elephant calves are rehabilitated and returned to the wild at the community-owned Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya. Photographed between September 2016 and February 2017. #

Ami Vitale / National Geographic

                                                                                                  

26. From the series Warriors Who once Feared Elephants Now Protect Them, nominated in the Nature Stories category. Orphaned and abandoned elephant calves are rehabilitated and returned to the wild at the community-owned Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya. Photographed between September 2016 and February 2017. #

Ami Vitale / National Geographic






27. From the series Warriors Who once Feared Elephants Now Protect Them, nominated in the Nature Stories category. Orphaned and abandoned elephant calves are rehabilitated and returned to the wild at the community-owned Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya. Photographed between September 2016 and February 2017. #

Ami Vitale / National Geographic

                                                         

28. Nominated in the Spot News Singles category. People are thrown into the air as a car plows into a group of protesters demonstrating against the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. The attack killed Heather Heyer and injured 19 others. James Alex Fields Jr., the alleged driver, was charged with second-degree murder. #

Ryan M. Kelly / The Daily Progress

                                                                                                  

29. From the series Sacred No More, nominated in the Nature Stories category. Kaoru Amagai may live in a traditional Japanese home, but his lifestyle is far from traditional—he shares his home with three macaques. Kin is the oldest of the monkeys and Mr. Amagai cares for them as he would any child, helping them dress, bathe, or finish their daily yogurt snack. In recent years, the Japanese macaque, best known as the snow monkey, has become habituated to humans. An increasing macaque population in the countryside means the monkeys raid crops to survive; in cities, macaques are tamed and trained for the entertainment industry. #

Jasper Doest

                                                                                                  

30. From the series Sacred No More, nominated in the Nature Stories category. At the Utsonomiya's Kayabuki Tavern Fuku-chan and Yume-chan, Mr. Otsuka's oldest monkeys practice their daily performance. The monkeys have played famous actors and politicians and have appeared on foreign television shows. Following dinner in the tavern, customers have the opportunity to watch the macaques perform tricks on a makeshift stage with the help of a variety of stage props, including homemade paper mâché masks—the Donald Trump mask is the favorite among the visiting tourists.                

                                                                                             

31. From the series Rohingya Refugees Flee Into Bangladesh to Escape Ethnic Cleansing, nominated in the General News category. Rohingya refugees carry their belongings as they walk on the Bangladesh side of the Naf River after fleeing Myanmar on October 2, 2017, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. "Clearance operations" against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar conducted by the Burmese army led to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing into Bangladesh on foot or by boat. Many died in the attempt. In Bangladesh, refugees were housed in makeshift settlements. Photographed between September 19 and November 2, 2017. #

Kevin Frayer / Getty Images                          






32. From the series Rohingya Refugees Flee Into Bangladesh to Escape Ethnic Cleansing, nominated in the General News category. A Rohingya refugee woman is helped from a boat as she arrives, exhausted, on the Bangladesh side of the Naf River at Shah Porir Dwip after fleeing her village in Myanmar, on October 1, 2017, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. #

Kevin Frayer / Getty Images



33. From the series Rohingya Refugees Flee Into Bangladesh to Escape Ethnic Cleansing, nominated in the General News category. A Rohingya refugee boy desperate for aid cries as he climbs on a truck distributing aid for a local NGO near the Balukali refugee camp on September 20, 2017, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. #

Kevin Frayer / Getty Images