Durrer: World Press Photo winner critique

Hans Durrer, our great guest lecturer from last spring, has written his comments on the World Press Photo contest winner from this year here.

My first thought, after seeing this years winner, was a sense of relief, since the picture wasn't a direct crisis / war / poverty / crime, thightly composed, violence showing image.
As Durrer, I had a hard time understanding the content without reading the text for the image, still, I liked the picture. It wasn't a "in-your-face-with-a-guideline-manual" type of image, instead it was a little bit gloomy, I directly got a different feeling than from previous winners or crisis photos in general.
I probably wouldn't have came up with the context, what's happening in the picture, unless I had read the byline.

But yet, good and powerful images can, and should, be possible to make without the help of text. This isn't an answer for that. The women are too far away, there's no Iranian flag placing them in Teheran, no election posters, nothing.

Still, I personally don't like the modern art way that of a picture series 30% of weight is in the simply made pictures and 70% is explained in the deep and strong statement.