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The World Press Photos exhibition finishes tomorrow (Sunday July 17) at the State Library of NSW in Sydney.

It's certainly worth seeing.

Last Thursday Tim Clayton a Sydney Morning Herald sports photographer who has won several awards in it spoke. Have a look for his pics at smh.com.au - you'll be impressed. Or look at http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/whatson/exhibitions/press2004/4.cfm

He said newspapers were made for words people by words people, and they often didn't understand pictures.

He complained about being asked to stage manage pictures. Journalists aren't asked to make up quotes, he said, why should photographers be asked to make up pictures?

He also said that in these days of Photoshop there's probably less manipulation going on than there was in the darkroom days, because people are more sensitive to it.

The one use of PS was correcting dust bunnies, he said.

Very interesting also to see the crowd - mostly under 35, and many photographers or would be photographers among them.

You are so lucky to have the exhibition up there in Sydney... I would love to attend

You can see some of his work here too. http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/2002/10/03/1033538721401.html

Bob, thanks for the info and quick rundown. I have seen Tim's work at Momento (he uses them) and it is great.

There's a world press photos website, of course, which gives an idea of what the best are doing.

But when you see the shots printed big it's quite a different experience.

There's a famous shot of a woman crying after the tsunami by Arko Datta
http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/whatson/exhibitions/press2005/1.cfm
but it's not until you see it blown up big that you get the full impact of the flies on the arm.

The other thing Tim said was that to be a great photographer you needed a V8 heart not a heart like a Vespa. I presume he's talking about courage and determination in going for the shot.

You can also buy the book....I used to get it every year but havent seen it for awhile