World Press Photo celebrates 70 years with a landmark print sale of 70 limited-edition works from its archive honouring decades of courageous, creative visual storytelling. It also includes work from Joop Swart Masterclass (JSM) participants, highlighting World Press Photo’s (WPP) ongoing focus on education and the next generation of visual storytellers.

Which way would you turn? Highway 212. South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench
Which way would you turn? Highway 212. South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench

The JSM, launched in 1994, remains WPP’s best-known educational programme for emerging photographers in documentary photography, photojournalism and visual storytelling. Each year, twelve photographers from across the globe are invited to produce a project on a given theme, to be critiqued by a line-up of industry masters.

Post box on Highway 212, Faith, South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench
Post box on Highway 212, Faith, South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench

In 2002 I was lucky enough to be selected for the JSM. The project theme was Faith. I suspected many of the participants would interpret it literally and they did, photographing nuns, born-again Christians and along Norway’s Bible Belt.

Faith video store - TV’s Daisy Duke famous denim shorts were so short they became a fashion phenomenon known as Daisy Dukes. South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench
Faith video store – TV’s Daisy Duke’s famous denim shorts became a fashion phenomenon, South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench

Finding Faith

I’ve never have faith in the religious sense. Perhaps if I did, I might have avoided some troubles. I decided to find out definitively if Faith actually exists. And there it was, on a map – Faith, a small dot about 130 miles north of Rapid City, South Dakota. It’s arguably best known as the childhood home of Catherine Bach, television’s dinky denim shorts wearing Daisy Duke, and for the discovery of Sue, the T-Rex skeleton discovered in 1990 in the nearby Black Hills. Those exciting facts were enough for me to go.

The population of Faith has dipped below 500. South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench
The population of Faith has dipped below 500. South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench

To coincide with the 4th July celebrations, I booked a flight from London and set off finding Faith. The population then was around 548 (it’s now nearer 350). South Dakota’s state motto reads Under God the People Rule, but in Faith the locals believed that Under God the Weather Rules. When I arrived, the town was tolerating its worst drought in over half a century.

Gilbert Jones, the only barber for 100 miles, recalled plagues of locusts and no power, Faith, South Dakota, USA. Image Credit: Peter Dench
Gilbert Jones, the only barber for 100 miles, recalled plagues of locusts and no power, Faith, South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench

Heaven sent

Climbing onto Gilbert Jones’s barber chair, he recalled the plagues of grasshoppers that blacked out the sun in 1936 and the absence of electricity until 1954. The American Way was flourishing in Faith, I wasn’t a stranger, just a friend they hadn’t met. At the Lone Tree Bar I met Tim, a man who’d lost four of his six children, two of them swept from his arms during a flood on June 9th, 1972. I mentioned that I was married on the same date 30 years later. He became convinced I was an angel sent to comfort him. I accepted his blessing, thanks and several beers.

Tim with company at The Lone Tree Bar, Faith, South Dakota, USA. Image Credit: Peter Dench
Tim with company at The Lone Tree Bar, Faith, South Dakota, USA. Image Credit: Peter Dench

Pastor Terry of the Faith Christian Centre knew I was coming. When we met at Kris’s Drive Inn, one of only three places to eat, he offered to demonstrate his lightning-fast painting technique by depicting a religious landscape on a mirror. He claimed that anyone passing one of his paintings would feel the healing power of God. I had to leave the one he gave me behind as I wasn’t sure whether I needed to declare divine energy at UK customs. Terry understood and promised to keep it safe. I hope to return one day to collect it.

The watermelon eating competition was followed by the watermelon seed spitting competition, Faith, South Dakota, USA. Image Credit: Peter Dench
The watermelon eating competition was followed by the watermelon seed spitting competition, Faith, South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench

Power to connect

Faith had six churches serving its small community – Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic and Christian among them. Something for the Mormons was in development. I photographed the balloon-bursting contest, the watermelon-eating competition, watermelon-seed-spitting competition and a wedding. I would’ve photographed the fireworks had they not been cancelled because of the drought. On the edge of Highway 212, the town’s sign read optimistically: Next Year Will Be Better.

A sign for those leaving Faith behind, South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench
A sign for those leaving Faith behind, South Dakota, USA, 2002. Image Credit: Peter Dench

That assignment taught me what WPP has always stood for: faith in photography’s power to connect people and places. A year later, I was fortunate to win third prize in the People in the News category at the WPP Awards for a reportage on alcohol and England. None of my prints from either story are represented in the 70 Prints for 70 Years collection. I’m still proud to be part of the organisation’s legacy. WPP has remained a constant source of support and inspiration throughout my career.

In 2002 Faith was experiencing one of the worst droughts in half a century, South Dakota, USA. Image Credit: Peter Dench
In 2002 Faith was experiencing one of the worst droughts in half a century, South Dakota, USA. Image Credit: Peter Dench

This is the first time in WPP’s history that a print sale has been organised exclusively with award-winning works and images from the Masterclass. Each of the seventy images is available in a limited edition of museum-quality 20×30 cm prints, priced at €150 (USD 180 / GBP 135) unframed and €250 (USD 300 / GBP 220) framed, for the duration of the online sale only.

From the top

Joumana El Zein Khoury, Executive Director at WPP says, ‘Over the past 70 years, World Press Photo has collaborated with ambitious, brave and innovative photographers who have shaped our collective memory of world events, and offered us new ways of seeing. This sale is a chance to honour that history, while also looking towards the future. Each print represents not only a moment in time, but also the courage and creativity of the photographer behind it. ’

Independent visual journalism faces mounting challenges, every sale directly supports photographers and helps sustain WPP’s educational programmes, exhibitions and outreach. Buyers have the opportunity to bring powerful storytelling into their homes or workspace and contribute towards safeguarding international photojournalism.

Personally, the print sale is more than a fundraiser. It’s a timely reminder that behind every WPP photograph lies a story, one of curiosity, persistence and yes, faith. Faith in our subjects, our profession and in the belief that images still matter.

The sale will begin at 09:00 CET on Monday 17 November and finish at 23:59 CET on Wednesday 26 November.

For more information, visit www.worldpressphoto.org or Instagram, Facebook, X, Bluesky, and YouTube.

google preferred source Apple News