Watch: 42 'wow moments' captured in world's best press photo show
Get a sneak peek at the best photojournalism and documentary photography from around the globe.
The World Press Photo Exhibition has opened in Auckland showing the very best in news photography.
Travelling exhibitions manager and curator Martha Echavarria told RNZ's First Up the judges trawl through thousands of images.
"It's a very intense process. We receive around 60,000 images every year and then the jury has to go through, I think around five, six weeks of just looking at everything. Crazy debating, hours-long nights-long until they come down to what we have here, which is 42 winning stories."
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Many of the photos are instantly recognisable, she says, like the very famous photo of Donald Trump's attempted assassination.
The attempted Assassination of Donald Trump.
Jabin Botsford
"There's also the photo of Gabriel Medina, a Brazilian surfer who is jumping out of a wave, and he's caught mid-air and that went viral. It was all over the news last year, and we all were like, 'Oh I think we're going to be seeing that next year'."
The skill of the photographer is mixed with a touch of luck in shots such as this, she says.
"Just being in the right time, the right place, but also being very talented and capturing these strange shapes maybe, or funny moments."
The 70th anniversary of the World Press Photo exhibition is this year, so they decided to display a retrospective of how photojournalism has evolved, Echavarria says.
"Our special curator identified all these different themes, tropes, stereotypes that are repeated in the archive. And one of those, a lighter one, is the 'wow' moment. And I think the photo of Gabriel Medina mid-air is a 'wow' moment."
First held in 1955, the World Press Photo awards recognise the world’s best photojournalism and documentary photography, culminating in a touring exhibition each year.
The World Press Photo Exhibition runs 26 July to 24 August at 131 Queen St, Auckland, then moves to Wellington’s Takina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre from 5 September to 5 October.