Provocative, poignant, revealing and beautiful: VICE Canada’s annual photo show, which also celebrates the magazine’s annual photo issue, is happening in Toronto on Friday, June 17th at Ossington’s Angell Gallery.

This year’s exhibit entitled “The New Photojournalism” will provoke guests to ask, who exactly is a photojournalist these days? What differentiates a photojournalist from someone who captures and shares street-level stories from their iPhone? An entire year of school could be dedicated to this, but we asked VICE Canada Senior Editor Raf Katigbak to give us the short version:

“Photojournalism itself is no different now than it was during the golden age of the 1950s: people pointing a camera at what they thought was important, and trying to share that with the world. The only difference now is that everyone has an amazing camera in their pocket (that they use to make calls) and we’re constantly bombarded with still images from social media. But photojournalists — at least good ones — are more important now than ever: they direct our attention over the constant visual noise we get from our everyday lives to what we should really be looking at.”

This is definitely a show worth checking out that will undoubtedly leave you with lots to discuss over several Friday night pints.

VICE Photo Show “The New Photojournalism”

Friday, July 17th

Doors @ 7pm

Angell Gallery, 12 Ossington Avenue

Iraq / IDP / Sadar, 7, leans against a wall covered in drawings, including a tank. His 10 member family, who had escaped Sinjar, live in this one room inside an unfinished building in Zakho. When I asked who had created all of these drawings, almost everyone pointed at Sadar who smiled happily. He was suffering from skin infection due to bad hygiene in the building, but his parents made sure they would keep him as clean as possible - a hard task to do when it's near freezing and not enough kerosene or wood to heat up the water. Daben City is a housing estate with five buildings once filled with more then 7000 Yazidi IDP's in Zakho. Now a few hundred are left fearful when and where they will be moved to while still facing multiple dangers including the cold, falling from floors or staircases or being hit by debris. The rest of the IDP's have started to be relocated since the middle of November. D. NAHR / February 2015

Iraq / IDP / Sadar, 7, leans against a wall covered in drawings, including a tank. His 10 member family, who had escaped Sinjar, live in this one room inside an unfinished building in Zakho. When I asked who had created all of these drawings, almost everyone pointed at Sadar who smiled happily. He was suffering from skin infection due to bad hygiene in the building, but his parents made sure they would keep him as clean as possible – a hard task to do when it’s near freezing and there’s not enough kerosene or wood to heat up the water. Daben City is a housing estate with five buildings once filled with more then 7000 Yazidi IDP’s in Zakho. Now a few hundred are left fearful of when and where they will be moved to while still facing multiple dangers, including the cold, falling from floors or staircases or being hit by debris. The rest of the IDP’s have started to be relocated since the middle of November. D. NAHR / February 2015

A Texan wedding takes place in Tekit de Regil, a former Henequen hacienda created by the conquistadors in the late sixteenth century. Merida, Yucatan. November 24, 2012.

A Texan wedding takes place in Tekit de Regil, a former Henequen hacienda created by the conquistadors in the late sixteenth century. Merida, Yucatan. November 24, 2012.