by PATRICK LEJTENYI | Plus... Ocular autumn

Indian photojournalist Arko Datta must have seen some true horror in 2004. The Reuters photographer was in Cuddalore, on the Indian peninsula's Bay of Bengal coast, shooting the after-effects of the Boxing Day tsunami. The wave, said to be the largest natural disaster in living memory, killed nearly 300,000 people and left millions more homeless. But Datta's simple portrait of a woman's weeping as she kneels in the sand near her dead relative's outstretched arm captures the intimate moment of grief millions went through that week. It's a powerful, moving shot, and was last year's World Press Photo of the Year.

Many of the photos in the World Press Photo's annual touring exhibit, coming to Montreal next month, portray misery and violence in the developing world. Particularly blood-chilling is a picture by Mexican Reuters photog Daniel Aguilar of two Haitian men sitting in the back of a truck in the days after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned. One man, a vigilante calmly sipping a drink, has his boot on the neck of the other, a pro-Aristide thug. The chimère, as the president's goons were known, wears an expression of helpless resignation. Soon after the photo was taken, the chimère was stoned and burned alive.

There are dozens of other compelling photos in many categories, from spot news to nature to portraits to sports. This year marks the Amsterdam-based non-profit's 50th anniversary of high-calibre competition among some of the world's best photojournalists. It has produced some iconic images: a Vietnamese girl fleeing her napalmed village, a self-immolating Buddhist monk, a lone Chinese demonstrator standing in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square.

From Beslan to Baghdad, from Aceh to Athens, from Darfur to D.C., the photos offer a portrait of last year as seen in the news. And while much of it is admittedly grim, there are some lighter moments, like Renée Jones's picture of eight-year-old wrestler Jimmy Cates of Prior Lake, Minnesota, wearing a look of abject disappointment after placing fourth (of four) in a tournament. Others are achingly human, like Austrian Peter Granser's series of portraits of Alzheimer's sufferers, or Denmark's David Hogsholt's series on Mia, a pretty 25-year-old junkie prostitute in Copenhagen.

The World Press Photo, hosted by Contact Image, runs from Oct. 7–Oct. 29 at the Parisian Laundry and Co. (3550 St-Antoine W., metro Lionel-Groulx).

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