Focusing on the headline, Jim Johnson calls the Time cover propaganda and the World Press Photo award a category mistake. He provides an effective demonstration of how meaning is changed by associated text with an imaginary cover using the same photo with the headline “What Still Happened Despite Ten Years of Occupying Afghanistan” (above right). #
~ Thinking Images v.10: Jodi Bieber's Afghan girl portrait in context
It's an unfortunate truth in photojournalism that once your photograph is sold, you give up control over the manner in which your photograph is displayed and contextualized. As for the World Press Photo award, I think it is possible to look at photographs in isolation and judge them formally--it's just a matter of choosing a narrower analytical view--but depending on the photo, it may or may not strip the image of its potential full meaning or impact. Artworks can and are usually examined, analyzed, and valued through different aspects and fields of study, but in my experience the holistic view is the generally preferred one. Practically, no photograph can be fully appreciated for what it is out of the context in which it was taken, but some may be more closely tied or dependent on context than others, and therefore more susceptible to contextual corruption (such as the above example). Examining a photograph from a purely formal standpoint is quite possible, and is done, but it must be understood that doing so risks at least some de-contextualization. Perhaps formal elements and historical/social/political context could both be taken into account in the World Press Photo award, but once this context is recognized, it is likely that certain photos will be judged based on the significance of their context rather than on design and composition.
