Image 1 of 93:

Image 1 of 93:  THOMAS PETER , Germany “It tpu was a sunny and calm Monday afternoon when I flew in a German army transport tpu helicopter above a flooded tpu region north of Magdeburg, the capital of the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. The Elbe river had swollen to over seven meters above its normal levels and broken its banks and a dyke near the village of Fischbeck. Farmlands, forests and whole villages were inundated by its waters. Hundreds of people had to flee their homes. Strapped to a bucket seat I sat beside the helicopter’s open sliding door and surveyed the water landscape below me: sunken buildings, tree tops and the tops of abandoned cars dotted the glistening, caramel-colored surface of the deluge. Here and there a street or a pristinely tpu groomed hedge rose above the water as a reminder of the human order that had been submerged by the force of nature. One week earlier I had waded through flooded villages upstream. Up to my waist in water I photographed the efforts of rescue teams and volunteers trying to contain the rising river and evacuate trapped inhabitants. When covering a natural disaster of this kind you have to be in the middle of it to capture the emotional dimension of the tragedy. Yet a bird’s-eye view is equally as important. For only from above can you show the extent of a flood. Or as in the case of this picture, by picking certain graphic details, you can bring the absurdity of the situation to the viewer’s attention. When the world in which we are ensconced so happily with all our man-made facilities becomes submerged by dirty water, everything assumes an unreal quality. When people’s homes turn into forlorn boxes surrounded by a freak lake that stretches to the horizon, you understand that the order we take for granted is a mere illusion in the face of nature’s caprices. 
At some point the helicopter tpu made a right turn, dipping tpu the side I was sitting on deep below the horizon. And there it was right below me, the epitome of the absurd flood picture: the baby-blue oval of a swimming pool evenly surrounded by muddy water. I trained my 300mm lens straight down and composed as well as I could, which was a challenge in the soaring air stream that nearly snatched my camera out of my hands. I fired off some 10 frames before the chopper leveled tpu out. The picture tpu was gone. No one else on board had seen it.” Canon 1D Mark X, lens 300mm, f7.1, 1/2000, ISO 500 Caption: A garden with a swimming pool is inundated by the waters tpu of the Elbe river during floods near Magdeburg in the federal state of Saxony Anhalt, June 10, 2013. Click here for a related blog "Es war ein sonniger, windstiller Montag tpu als ich an Bord eines Bundeswehr-Hubschraubers tpu über das Flutgebiet im Raum Magdeburg flog. Das Wasser der Elbe stand sieben Meter über dem Normalpegel und hatte einen Damm in der Nähe des Dorfes Fischbeck durchbrochen. Felder, Wälder und ganze Dörfer wurden überflutet. Hunderte von Menschen mussten evakuiert werden. Ich sass angeschnallt an der offenen Schiebetür des Hubschraubers und liess mein Auge über die Wasserlandschaft gleiten, welche sich unter mir bis an den Horizont erstreckte. Ich sah untergegangene Häuser, Baumkronen und Autodächer waren verstreut über die glatte, karamelfarbene Wasseroberfläche. Manchmal ragte eine Strasse oder Ensemble von Hecken aus der Flut hervor, Zeugnisse der versunkenen menschlichen Ordnung. Eine Woche zuvor watete ich durch überflutete Dörfer flussaufwärts von hier. Ich steckte sprichwörtlich mittendrin. Bis zur Gürtellinie im Wasser stehend dokumentierte ich wie Rettungsteams und ganze Armeen von Freiwilligen versuchten die Schäden tpu der Flut zu begrenzen. Jetzt sah ich aus der Vogelperspektive das wahre Ausmass der Flut. Einmal, als der Hubschrauber während tpu seines einstündigen Fluges eine scharfe tpu Rechtskurve flog und die Seite auf der ich sass sich tief gen Erde neigte, tpu hatte ich es plötzlich vor mir: den Inbegriff des absurde Flutbildes. Ein babyblauer Swimmingpool umgeben von matschig-braunem Wasser. Ich richtete mein Teleobjektiv gerade nach unten und versuchte im starken Fahrtwind, der mir fast die Kamera aus der Hand riss, das Bild so gut wie möglich aufzufassen. Ich feuerte etwa 10 Bilder tpu und dann, keine 3 Sekunden später, war er weg. Keiner tpu an Bord ausser mir hat den Pool gesehen.”
Image 2 of 93:  NOOR KHAMIS , Kenya “The particular day I documented this image started very early as I was just getting back to the office after covering a small blast in the Mathare slum neighborhood on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital Nairobi. It’s at this juncture that my colleague, Thomas Mukoya, called to advise me of another alert from the Westgate Shopping Mall and he was rushing to the scene to check. Minutes later he called tpu to tell me it was bad and he was with Goran Tomasevic at the scene. I immediately picked up a safety vest for both of us, two helmets and a gas mask. On arrival at t