'L.A. Times' photogs on a roll in Pulitzers

By: David Walker For years, the Los Angeles Times displayed mostly unremarkable photography, despite plenty of talent and the resources of a big city paper. But suddenly, the Times photo department is the envy of the industry. "It's their year. Is it OK if I'm jealous?" says Joe Elbert, assistant managing editor of photography at The Washington Post.

A sign of success are the awards. Carolyn Cole won a Pulitzer this year for feature photography for her coverage of the civil war in Liberia. Last year, Don Bartletti earned the feature photo Pulitzer for his "Enrique's Journey."

Cole took last year's Robert Capa Gold Medal Award from the Overseas Press Club, and this year she gained the top prize in the Photographer of the Year (POY) competition. For his story on the effects of urban homicide, Brian Vander Brug won this year's Scripps Howard prize for photojournalism and the community service photojournalism award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Recently, the paper won 64 Society for News Design awards ? more than any other newspaper ?and POY's top prize for photo editing.

The Times' photo department is flourishing in part because it has shaken its second-class status in the newsroom. "There's an incredible appreciation for what we do now. Our photos are driving stories, and it never used to be that way," says Bartletti. "Photos used to be clipped and sized to fit in the spaces between the gray text."

"In the old days, reporters would not want to get Photo involved because they worried their story would get cut 20 inches to make room for photos," says Colin Crawford, the photo editor. "Now they want to get photography involved because they see that it gets great play."

The turnaround reflects management changes at the paper. In March 2000, the Tribune Company acquired the L.A. Times and put Baltimore Sun editor John Carroll at the helm. With an appreciation for the power of graphics and visual journalism, Carroll brought designer Joe Hutchinson with him from the Sun.

In the summer of 2001, former photo chief Larry Armstrong left the Times. Crawford, a 20-year veteran of the paper who was in charge of photography at the paper's Orange County edition, was named interim replacement, then earned the top photo job.

"Before the Tribune [bought the paper], the philosophy was, 'We want to be a great regional paper,'" Crawford says, "Now, it's, 'We want to be a great world-class paper.'" To that end, staff and resources have shifted from the suburban editions to the flagship paper downtown. (Vander Brug came in from the San Fernando Valley edition.)

Suddenly, Crawford had the budget to cover big stories aggressively. "We were able to put five or six photographers on Iraq," he says. "We've been better at getting Carolyn Cole in on the front end of news stories. That's given her a chance to dig in." Others spend a good portion of the year traveling to cover national and international stories.

Meanwhile, Crawford has been encouraging in-depth photo projects with the help of senior photo editor for projects Gail Fisher. Photographers develop their own stories in some cases. For instance, Vander Brug proposed photographing every one of the more than 100 candidates for governor in last year's recall election. The story, "Faces of the Recall," ran over 17 pages, and earned Vander Brug a third-place prize at POY.

Photo projects also arise from the print side of the newsroom. Bartletti's "Enrique's Journey," about a young Latino boy's harrowing quest to find his parents in the United States, is one example. Says Crawford, "It used to be that Photo didn't even know what stories were being done."

Nothing breeds success like success, of course. And all those awards have boosted the department's stock in the newsroom even more. "The culture has changed here," Crawford says.