Views from the front line

As John Ryley, head of Sky News said at the end of 2011: "This year has been an exceptional one for news." And few could disagree, with last year seeing some of the most world-shaping events of the past decade.

To reflect that fact, an exhibition at Somerset House in London, hosted by Sky News takes a close look at four of the major stories of the year. Front Line: A Year of Journalism & Conflict focuses on the Egyptian revolution, Syria, the Libyan conflict and the UK riots and runs until February 5.

As well as stills from Sky News HD footage flanking the gallery walls, visitors will be able to browse iPads featuring background interviews with the photojournalists, editors and producers responsible for capturing, cutting and broadcasting the extraordinary events of our time. We caught up with Sky News Creative Director Simon Buglione who put the exhibition together. 

"It seems odd to me that until now, the 'legitimate' record of the previous year has always been a Getty Images type thing done in a newspaper," he told us. "Given that 2011 was a year in which all the big stories were told on TV - mainly within rolling news - it seemed there was a better way to mark those events. So that was the spark of the exhibition. It isn't a review of the year, instead it focusses on the biggest stories. Early on, conflict became a central theme and there was an opportunity with the riots in the UK to bring in the juxtaposition of people fighting for freedom and others fighting to nick televisions."

Sky News' Alex Crawford, Libya

As creative director, Buglione was interested in the challenges thrown up by presenting a wide variety of moving images, often of different quality, in a gallery space. "I'd seen Don McCullin's photos in countless galleries. There is a language to war photography that I'm sure Phaidon would know about more than anybody. So I was interested in the aesthetic that moving image might bring, and within that how much we should worry about quality of image; should it be shrunk or blown up?  And can a mobile phone image be blown up in the same way as an HD one? In news television, HD quality can sometimes work against you with the viewer maybe feeling that the image was managed, or produced in a safe environment when in fact the exact opposite was actually the case.

Libya Massacre, Zawiyah, Libya (March 2011)

"Where the boundaries really blurred is where we dealt with the death of Colonel Gaddafi. It's the one bit of the exhibition that is not our footage. There are lots of monitors and lots of voices bombarding the viewer in that section, as they would the journalists working in a news organisation. It is, in effect, a video installation. It's a very immersive experience and a part of the exhibition where we were able to take a much more curatorial approach to the show. As our (Foreign Affairs) correspondent Lisa Holland says, It was a very ugly way for Gaddafi to die, he didn't even get hanged. To reflect that was perhaps the biggest creative challenge and opportunity."

Young boy crossing a road, Syria (2011)

Buglione's favourite image is of a young boy crossing a road in Syria. "It's beautiful in the way it has been captured, something that is an everyday occurence around the world. But when you consider he's crossing the road in what is effectively a sniper alley it becomes much more than that."

Front Line: A Year of Journalism & Conflict runs until February 5.