Editorial The Year in Review
Over the last year, the world of editorial photography and photojournalism has seen both some of the industry’s darkest lows and some of its most shining moments. Respectively, one can look at the now-jeopardised career of one of Australia’s most treasured visual reporters as a stark reminder of certain issues facing photography across the board, but also at new ground being made in the fields of press photography and environmental documentary with some of the best visual reporting published in recent times. Shocking the entire Australian photographic community in April of this year, the news that Afghanistan-based photojournalist Andrew Quilty had been disinvited to the World Press Photo award proceedings amidst “misconduct” allegations made history as the first time the sixty-year-old organisation had taken such action against an individual photographer. World Press Photo’s seemingly precipitous actions have since come under close examination by photographers the world over and in June, Quilty made public his intention to take legal action, enlisting the help of a defamation lawyer and a barrister to help clear his name.
Closer to home, but also not without controversy, was an image adorning page one of The Sydney Morning Herald showing the last moments of life for a kangaroo caught up in the drying plains of drought-stricken western New South Wales. The photograph, by Herald chief photographer, Nick Moir, spurred a social media backlash that ultimately saw photojournalists Australia-wide shaking their heads as the age-old discussion about bearing witness versus intervention was painfully reignited.
And on very much the same note, Lorenzo Tugnoli’s
