Title: World Press Photo 06

Author: Elsbeth Schouten, Kari Lundelin

ISBN: 0500974977

Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd

Edition: Paperback

Review: The annual World Press Photo contest is the world’s premier showcase of international press photography. Every year it produces some jaw-dropping images, and this year is no exception. It attracted, so we’re told, 83,044 images, by 4,448 professional photographers from 122 countries.Around 200 of them have been selected from the ten categories for this book (including news, sport, portraits, nature, daily life, among others) – which, as you’d probably guess, offers a carnival of death, violence, cruelty, suffering and disaster, with Hurricane Katrina, the 7/7 bombings and the Kashmir earthquake all featuring. Some of the images are much too grisly for the UK press, but there are plenty of quieter images too. My favourites include a portrait of a Nigerian man with his ‘pet’ hyena on a chain. World Press Photo 06 is somehow depressing and uplifting at the same time.