DURHAM, NC (February 27, 2007) – The first round of judging in one of the four divisions of the National Press Photographers Association’s Best Of Photojournalism 2007 contest is scheduled to start this Sunday, March 4, 2007, at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, FL. The Television division of the Best Of Photojournalism 2007 will be first out of the blocks this year, with judging of individual television photography categories, editing categories, and stations’ competing tapes continuing throughout the week.
The entry period is now closed for all divisions (Still Photography, Photo Editing, Television Photography, Television Editing, and Web sites). NPPA contest coordinator Thomas Kenniff says that most of the submitted Photography entries are now available for online viewing on the NPPA Web site.
The NPPA’s Best Of Photojournalism 2007 competition, sponsored again this year by Canon and Avid, continues to grow annually. Kenniff and Stephen Sample, NPPA’s information technology director, said the Still Photography Photo Editing division has seen a 15 percent growth year-to-year, and this year the division has more than 1,500 entries (representing more than 4,700 pages). And there was another large increase this year in the number of entries in the Web site division, which grew 22 percent over last year (with nearly 500 distinct URLs entered for consideration this year).
In the Still Photography division there are nearly 60,000 entries this year, up another 9 percent over the previous year. Six years ago when the contest was launched there were 25,000 Best Of Photojournalism still images judged, and then between 2002 and 2005 the number of Best Of Photojournalism entries in the still photography categories grew by another 66 percent.
Television contest co-chair Merry Murray of KSNW-TV in Wichita, KS, says the big winners of Stations of the Year, and the Ernie Crisp Television News Photographer of the Year, will be announced on Friday, March 9. The winners of individual categories that are judged daily will be announced nightly on the NPPA Web site. Television judges will be busy, as there are more than 650 entries in the Television Photography categories along, not including the Television Editing categories.
Television photography division judges this year are Jay Korff of WJLA-TV in Washington, DC; Erica Simpson of KGTV-TV in San Diego, CA; Regina McCombs of The Star Tribune in Minneapolis, MN; Mark Morache of KING-TV in Seattle, WA; and Joel Eagle of WJZ-TV in Baltimore, MD.
The television editing division judges are Stephanie Ottjepka of WTVT-TV in Tampa, FL, and Michael Humphries of KENS-TV in San Antonio, TX. Ram Guzman of KTVT-TV in Fort Worth, TX, is the other television contest co-chair.
Judging in the Still Photography division of the Best Of Photojournalism 2007 begins on Sunday, March 18, and runs through Friday, March 23, also at Poynter. The Photojournalist of the Year for Larger and Smaller Markets, along with the Sports Portfolio of the Year and the winner of Cliff Edom’s “New America Award,” will be announced as the judging wraps up on March 23.
Judges in the Best Of Photojournalism Still Photography division this year are Bebeto Matthews, a staff photojournalist for the Associated Press in New York; Steve Gonzales, director of photography for the Houston Chronicle; James Colton, a photography editor for Sports Illustrated; Naomi Halperin, director of photography for The Morning Call in Allentown, PA; and Kathleen Hennessy, deputy director of photography for the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Still Photography divisions are coordinated by Harry Walker of the McClatchy-Tribune Photo Service; Joe Elbert, assistant managing editor of photography for The Washington Post; and Clyde Mueller of The Santa Fe New Mexican, who is also an NPPA past president. Also serving on the Best Of Photojournalism contest committee are Kenneth F. Irby of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Deanne Fitzmaurice of The San Francisco Chronicle.
Judging of the Best Of Photojournalism 2007 Picture Editing division will be March 29 through March 31 at Ohio University in Athens, OH, under the coordination of chairs Terry Eiler and Stan Alost. Eiler is the director of OU’s School of Visual Communication (VisCom), and Alost is a VisCom associate professor.
Picture Editing division judges this year in Athens are John Glenn, an editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Elizabeth Krist, an illustrations editor for National Geographic; Bonnie Jo Mount, an assistant professor at Hampton University in Hampton, VA; New York freelance photojournalist Bob Sacha; and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist William D. Snyder, the former director of photography for The Dallas Morning News.
Web division judging for the Best Of Photojournalism begins on Sunday, March 18, and runs through Friday, March 23. Web division judging is also conducted at Poynter and is coordinated by chair Keith W. Jenkins, the photography editor for The Washington Post.
This years Web division judges are Andrew DeVigal, a multimedia editor for The New York Times; Regina McCombs of The Star Tribune in Minneapolis, MN; Josh Meltzer, a photojournalist for The Roanoke Times who was the 2005 Best Of Photojournalism Photojournalist of the Year for Smaller Markets; Richard Hernandez, a photojournalist for the San Jose Mercury News; and Heather Powazek Champ from Flickr.
In addition to Canon and Avid, NPPA’s Best Of Photojournalism competition is also sponsored by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, FL; Hesketh.com; Ibiblio.org; Camera Bits; Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication; Think Tank Photo; and MerlinOne.
For more information or to ask questions please contact Best Of Photojournalism 2007 contest coordinator Thomas Kenniff at contests@nppa.org.
