The Sunday Still: Red-Hot Street Rage by Hussein Faleh

Photojournalist Patrick Farrell has joined the blog with his weekly feature, The Sunday Still. Farrell selects one image each week that showcases the best photojournalism by photojournalists from around the world. The feature runs weekly in The Sunday Long Read. The goal of the newsletter, edited by Don Van Natta Jr. and Jacob Feldman, is to put the week’s best journalism in your hands every Sunday morning.

The Sunday Still from Patrick Farrell

Red-Hot Street Rage People lunge at photographers to intimidate or thwart them, but a running protestor’s hand closing in on his lens became AFP photographer Hussein Faleh’s best image on Nov. 25 as he covered dangerous street protests in Basra, Iraq. Faleh fills 100% of the frame with layers of action. The eye rotates from burning tires and smoke to the crowd in the street to the protestor’s hand and covered face. Using a wide-angle lens to capture the action close up, Faleh conveys the drama and urgency of a country demanding change. More than 420 people have been killed and 15,000 wounded over the past two months in Iraq as anti-government crowds have lashed out against corruption and a stagnant economy. Four days after Faleh’s photograph, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced he would resign. Patrick Farrell, the curator of The Sunday Still, is the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winner for Breaking News Photography for The Miami Herald, where he worked from 1987 to 2019. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Management at the University of Miami School of Communication.