PHOTOGRAPHER WINS PRESTIGIOUS PRIZE POSTHUMOUSLY

By: Dorothy Ho Series Appeared In Florida Times-Union Last Year


(Photo District News) For
the first time in 58 years, the Pictures of the Year contest awarded a
posthumous prize. Photographer Tara McParland, who died last November at age 33,
won the Canon Photo Essay prize for the document she made of her fight with
breast cancer.

The essay was published in four parts by her newspaper, The Florida Times-
Union. "What took her portfolio to a higher level was that she was
documenting her own circumstances," says award coordinator Catherine Mohesky.
"The judges were impressed with her courage to want to tell her story that way."
(E&P magazine wrote about McParland in December.)

Dennis Hamilton Jr., photo editor of the Times-Union in Jacksonville,
says the win is "an affirmation of what Tara did and what she shared." The win
will allow her story to reach more people, he says. "I think she would have been
happy about it, but her reward has always been community response," Hamilton
adds. When McParland went public with her story, she received an outpouring of
support, he remembers.

Herald News photographer wins newspaper prize

For first time entrant Scott Strazzante, winning the Newspaper Photographer of
the Year was a big surprise. The 37-year-old staff photographer at The Herald
News, part of the Copley Chicago Newspapers, sent in a portfolio of 10
singles and a personal essay on two elderly farmers. "I knew I had a good year,"
he says, "but I didn't think I could get an award."

Knowing 24-year-old Rob Finch, last year's winner and this year's runner-up in
the same category, gave Strazzante a "little boost" to enter his own portfolio.
"When [Finch] joined Copley, we both pushed each other to get better," says
Strazzante. "I was watching him and learning from him."

Freelance shooter Jon Lowenstein won both the Magazine Photographer of the Year
and the Fuji Community Awareness Award. As part of the City 2000 project, he
spent the whole year photographing Chicago. He wanted to show changes in the
city and his portfolio of 55 images included essays on day laborers and
immigrant families. Interest and passion kept him focused on the long-term
project, says the 31-year-old.

"When you have a newspaper, you have an inherent structure of reporters and
designers," says the former newspaper shooter. "Here, we don't have to publish
every day. It's a great transition to freelance work." He's now working on his
first book on the disabled who live independently in Illinois.

There are more than 250 winners in 54 categories this year. Check out www.poy.org for a full list of winners. Twenty
winning images picked by MSNBC.com are on www.msnbc.com, where readers can vote for their
favorite POY image. Voting ends on April 6 and the winner will receive the
Public's Best Picture of the Year award.

One of the world's oldest and largest photojournalism competitions, Pictures of
the Year began 58 years ago as the 50 Print Exhibition of Spot News and Feature
Pictures. The contest is sponsored by the Missouri School of Journalism and the
National Press Photographers Association.



Photo District News is a sister publication to E&P.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.