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The photo editors from international magazines have chosen the Bangladeshi photographer Munem Wasif as the ‘best young reporter for the City of Perpignan, France 2008’. The award will be given on September 5 in a grand evening show.
   Exhibition of Wasif;s award winning photographs will begin today at Visa pour l’Image.
   The exhibition, titled ‘Bangladesh, standing on the edge’, will continue till September 14.
   Munem Wasif is the first Bangladeshi photographer who got the opportunity of exhibiting photographs at Visa pour l’Image.
   The organisers will also be publishing Wasif’s first publication under the title of ‘Bangladesh, standing on the edge’.
   Visa pour l’Image is a huge international event, gathering more than 3.000 professionals every year in the French city Perpignan.
   The organisers will arrange around 30 photography exhibitions.
   Mmeetings, conferences and debates will also bee arranged during this fortnight-long festival.
   A good number of photographers, mediapersons, editors and representatives from photo agencies and the galleries attend the festival.
   According to the organisers, the way Wasif takes his photographs can be summed up in two ways: people and the frame.
   He definitely belongs to a humanist tradition, contemporary in content for the attention he gives to people and to the way they live, what they have to endure and all they bear in today’s pitiless world. Organisers think that a world where speed is queen and profit king inconsiderately jettisons by the wayside those left behind.
   ‘It is salutary that an eye such as Wasif’s reminds us that these things exist, that there are men, women, children, “little people” like us who have to withstand much more than we should,’ they said.
   

Wolfgang Wagner has bid farewell to the Bayreuth opera festival in Germany after 57 years at the helm.
   The 88-year-old blinked back tears as the annual music festival, founded by his grandfather - composer Richard Wagner, came to a close on Thursday.
   'I hope you leave the stage a happy man,' said festival spokesman Peter Emmerich, in a speech to Wolfgang.
   Wolfgang's tenure officially comes to an end on Saturday, but the battle to become his successor remains wide open.
   Wolfgang agreed to step down as head of the prestigious music festival earlier this year.
   Wolfgang and his brother Wieland took charge of the festival in 1951, but following the death of his brother, Wolfgang became the sole director in 1967 - leading the festival single-handedly for more than 40 years.
   In 2001, the festival's board of directors, which includes Bavarian federal and state
   government, tried to force the ageing Wolfgang to step down
   by naming his daughter from
   his first marriage, 63-year-old
   Eva Wagner-Pasquier, to take over.
   But Wolfgang refused to quit the post, dismissing Eva as incompetent and claiming his tenure was for life.
   However, following the death of his second wife and long time assistant, Gudrun, Wolfgang relented.
   Earlier this year, he approved a joint application to run the festival by Katharina Wagner, his 30-year-old daughter with Gudrun, and Eva, who is currently artistic consultant at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France.
   Katharina organised the first live web broadcast and public viewing of an opera from Bayreuth this year - and has been credited with opening up the festival to new audiences.

Young Iranian photographer Mohsen Rasulof died in a recent plane crash in Kyrgyzstan.
   The passenger jet carrying 90 people, crashed Sunday shortly after takeoff near the Kyrgyz capital, killing 68 on board.
   Rasulof was in Bishkek to examine locations for a future documentary project.
   Mohsen Rasulof was born in 1983 in Shiraz and was a graduate of engineering from Britain.
   Among his credits were the photography of the movies ‘The Green Fire’ directed by Mohammadreza Aslani and the ‘Lullaby’ by Manijeh Hekmat.
   He had also held several photo exhibits in Shiraz, Abadan, Gorgan, Tehran, and Isfahan, and was also scheduled to hold a solo exhibit in New York.
   The Boeing 737 was headed to Iran when it crashed near Bishkek’s Manas International Airport. Twenty-two people, including two crewmembers, survived the accident.