The Door of Humility

Daily Life, third prize stories

2007

The Door of Humility leading to the main sanctuary inside the Church of the Nativity. Around 180,000 Palestinians, some 24,000 of them Christians, live in and around Bethlehem. Also present are a number of Jewish settlements, with a population approaching 80,000.

Commissioned by: Magnum Photos for National Geographic

Location: West Bank, Palestinian Territories

Photo Credit: Christopher Anderson

Christopher Anderson has been a member of Magnum Photos since 2005. He has served as a contract photographer for Newsweek and National Geographic, and is presently the first ever photographer-in-residence at New York Magazine. Anderson first gained recognition for his pictures in 1999, when he boarded a handmade, wooden boat with Haitian refugees trying to sail to America. The boat, named the Believe In God, sank in the Caribbean. In 2000, the images from that journey received the Robert Capa Gold Medal.

He is the author of four monographs of photography including the book Capitolio, which was named one of the best photo books of 2009 at the Kassel Photo Book festival. His books SON and STUMP were both released in 2013. Anderson is the recipient of two World Press Photo Awards and received Germany’s LEAD award in 2013 for best documentary photographer.