16 Photographs

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.


Palestinian Kid    2000

This is a still from a video but what happened before and after this image is seared into my memory and i clearly remember the whole newsroom stopping to stand and stare at the scene on the monitors in disbelief.
It happened in Gaza, two days after Ariel Sharon dismissed calls to cancel his visit to the sacred Haram al Sharif Mosque because of fears of the outcry it would cause in Palestine.
He went anyway and the predicted riot ensued which led to this moment.
The father and his son were unarmed, and were not part of the rioting and just trying to get home and got caught in the crossfire between Israeli troops and stone throwing Palestinians, the boy and his father cowered behind a small metal barrel as bullets rained around them.
The father is seen waving desperately at the Israeli soldiers on the other side of the road, as his son screams, obviously terrified, by his side. Suddenly, the father falls backwards from the force of a bullet and his screaming son's body jerks as he is hit, and killed, by a volley of bullets.
The image of the small boy, scared witless as he cowered behind his father before being ruthlessly shot dead by Israeli troops still chills me today and is filed away in my brain as one of the most disturbing images i have ever seen.