NPPA Photo Contest Rules Changed p. 35

By: Robert Salgado In response to complaints that categories gave
advantage to photographers from large papers who
can take photos in foreign 'hot spot' locations sp.

CATEGORIES FOR THE Pictures of the Year (POY) contest have been changed for next year to meet objections that the judging is biased toward photographers from large newspapers that can send staffers overseas to the world's hot spots.
The changes were disclosed by POY director Bill Kuykendall at the opening of the National Press Photographers Association's Flying Short Course in the Philadelphia Marriott West in West Conshohocken, Pa.
A global news category has been added to the single picture catgories in the newspaper division of POY which is sponsored by NPPA, the University of Missouri's School of Journalism, Canon U.S.A., and Professional Printing and Publishing Imaging Eastman Kodak. This year's contest for 1994 pictures is the 52nd, but NPPA and the University of Missouri have been doing it together only since 1957.
There is also a new division open to both newspaper and magazine photographers with three categories: spot news, general news and news picture story, with the first two being single picture categories. Another change is the addition of a Community Awareness Award.
The display at the Flying Short Course that listed the categories for the 1995 POY contest, which closes next Jan. 20, described the Community Awareness Award as follows:
"The award shall be given annually to a body of work that demonstrates an unusual understanding and appreciation for everyday life. Entries must have been produced entirely within the photographer's home community. Its purpose is to encourage greater attention to the small events in life, which are often overshadowed by the news of the day and to celebrate those photographs that remind us that the world turns mostly on the labor and dreams of the common man and woman."
Kuykendall showed the NPPA members at the Flying Short Course a series of charts showing the distribution of POY awards over the years and how POY seeks to make the contest more representative of the best in today's photojournalism.
Other speakers at the Flying Short Course included Michael Williamson, newspaper photographer of the year and Washington Post staffer, who urged photographers to look for "emotional response" to their photographs; Jeff Rivers, associate editor of the Hartford Courant, who said photojournalists have an obligation to depict the everyday lives of all segments of our society; Cathaleen Curtiss, a Washington Times photographer, and her husband, Rick Kozak, a free-lancer, who described how they balanced careers and a family that included two children; David Leeson, Dallas Morning News photographer, who described the commitment required of a photojournalist, and Russ Kendall of Portland, Maine, who spoke on how a free-lance photographer can make a living in multimedia.
The Flying Short Course went on to Louisville, Oklahoma City, Denver and Sacramento, covering all these cities in eight days.
?(Photo by Robert Salgado) [Caption]
?(Bill Kuykendall, director of the Pictures of the Year contest, fields questions about the new contest categories, during NPPA's Flying Short Course in Philadelphia.) [Caption & Photo]
?(Salgado is a free-lance writer.) [Caption]