spectacularizing life and the everyday in photojournalism: a critical analysis on award- winning images in the “daily life” category of the world press photo contest, 2010-2016

This paper studies award-winning photographs in the “Daily Life” category of the World Press Photo (WPP) contest during 2010-2016, and analyzes how those images from this influential photojournalistic institution in the West look at “life” and “the everyday”. The essay reviews LIFE magazine, from which a certain set of professional conventions in Western photojournalism was “invented”, and explains how it has shaped and encouraged the practices in WPP. The essay argues that award-winning photographic images in this category of WPP from all over the world, particularly those from non-Western areas, have transformed daily lives into cultural/visual spectacles through the contents selected, special angles/visual styles taken, or anticipated readers of the works. Due to the WPP’s immense power in media and culture, this paper further contends that photojournalists from non-Western countries internalize such approaches exercised by Western photographers and jury members, and eventually self-exoticize the daily lives in their own societies.