OnTheTown: A favourite image at a photographic exhibition this week was one of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, taken as he left the site on Wellington Quay where five people were killed in a Dublin bus crash last year.
The award- winning image, which was captured by press photographer Gerry Mooney, impressed many of those who gathered for the opening of the AIB Press Photographers Association of Ireland (PPAI) exhibition.
"It's a very striking picture of him," said Ray McManus, of Sportsfile. "In my opinion, he's a man of the people and he was obviously affected by the tragic events of that day . . . For the photographer to get there, to react and get such a picture, that's our trade."
Angel Luis Gonzales, from Madrid, who is a photography student at Dublin Institute of Technology, also picked this image as "quite moving".
The prize-winning images in the exhibition were chosen from almost 1,700 entries by more than 100 press photographers. The categories include news, sports action, politics and the arts.
The images "are all about people and it's all about life. You get a lot of Bertie", noted Ros Kavanagh, an architectural photographer and a board member of the Gallery of Photography.
The exhibition, which will continue at the Gallery of Photography until April 17th, will also be on view at 20 AIB branches around the country. The AIB PPAI Press Photographer of the Year award was presented earlier this year to Alan Betson of this newspaper.
All the images in the exhibition are uncropped and "as the photographer wants them to be seen", explained Steve Humphreys, president of the PPAI.
Also at the Dublin opening were Brenda Moriarty of AIB; Irish Times photographers Frank Miller, Cyril Byrne and Dara Mac Dónaill; and Graham Hughes and Leon Farrell, of Photocall Ireland.
