The National Press Photographers Association announced the winners of its 2013 Best of Photojournalism contest on Tuesday.
For the second year in a row, David Weatherwax of The Herald, of Jasper, Ind., was named photojournalist of the year for smaller markets. R. J. Sangosti of The Denver Post was the 2013 photojournalist of the year for larger markets, followed by Damon Winter and Tyler Hicks of The New York Times.
The prestigious Cliff Edom âNew Americaâ Award was given to Aaron Huey for his picture story âIn the Shadow of Wounded Knee,â which was featured on Lens last August and published in National Geographic magazine.
Mr. Sangostiâs winning portfolio included coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting as well as a photo essay on a prison hospice patient. Mr. Weatherwaxâs newspaper in southern Indiana has a circulation of less than 12,000 but has published a documentary photo essay every Saturday for the last 34 years.
Adrees Latif of Reuters won first place in the general news category and first and second place in the domestic news picture story category.
Melissa Lyttle of The Tampa Bay Times won the best published picture story, larger markets category for a story on a pair of twins from Clearwater, Fla., one of whom has severe mental and physical disabilities.
In the photo editing competition, The Los Angeles Times won team honors for newspaper picture editor of the year. Mark Edelson of The Palm Beach Post was the 2013 newspaper picture editor of the year.
Michele McNally and The New York Times did well in many of the photo editing awards, sweeping the newspaper recurring feature or series category with âElection 2012.â Ms. McNally also won first and second place for newspaper special section or reprint, and first place in the newspaper sports section front, newspaper sports project and newspaper illustrative single page categories.
Jamie Wellford, formerly of Newsweek, was named the magazine picture editor of the year. He took a buyout from Newsweek last year when it shut down its print editions. The award is a fitting recognition of Mr. Wellfordâs enthusiastic support of photographers during his 11-year tenure at Newsweek. He is known for his warm embrace of both individual photographers and the photographic community.
âI have to thank all of the photographers, who devote so much of their life to what remains a compelling medium and who trusted me enough to show me their work,â he said.
As the magazine died a slow death over the last few years, Mr. Wellford had to fight many budget battles to be able to assign photographers to make original work. Toward the end, he said, he âlost too many of them.â
But Mr. Wellford is not pessimistic, nor is he sitting still. He teaches at the International Center of Photography and is involved in many projects, including âScreen,â described as a âcollaborative platform for visual storytelling.â
âI still believe in the power of photography to tell the truth and provoke conversation, and Iâm still devoted to the photography audience and community,â he said.
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