By: Jay DeFoore In a year dominated by ongoing violence in Iraq, massive earthquakes in Asia and hurricanes that ravaged the Gulf Coast, a simple but elegant photo highlighting famine in Niger won the 2005 World Press Photo of the Year award. Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly of Reuters took the winning image, which shows the emaciated fingers of a one-year-old child pressed against his mother's lips at an emergency feeding clinic in Niger.
Another Reuters photographer, Mohamed Azakir, won the top prize for Spot News Singles for a picture capturing the horrific aftermath of a car bombing that killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Several U.S.-based photographers won awards from the Amsterdam-based World Press Photo organization, now in its 49th year.
Getty Images photographer Chris Hondros took second place in Spot News Singles for his widely published photo of a young Iraqi girl grieving over the death of her parents who were killed by U.S. troops at a checkpoint in Tal Afar, Iraq.
Michael Appleton of the New York Daily News took third place in Spot News Stories for his images depicting the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Several Associated Press photographers won awards, including Tom?s Munita, who won two.
Although many of the winning images in the news categories involved wars and natural disasters, several exposed ongoing social issues, such as child labor in Bangladesh, women living with breast cancer, and the Chernobyl legacy.
Joao Silva of The New York Times won second place in the Contemporary Issues category for photographs depicting the overcrowded and inhumane conditions in South Africa's prison system. Todd Heisler of the Rocky Mountain News took first place in the People in the News category for his shot of a casket of a fallen U.S. Marine being loaded onto a commercial airliner as passengers look on through the plane's windows.
On the lighter side, Philadelphia Daily News photographer David Malaletti won second place in the Sports Features category for his photo essay on the resurgence of women's roller derby. Michael Wirtz of the Philadelphia Inquirer won third place in the Arts & Entertainment category for a humorous picture of an elderly woman taking in a surreal sculpture by artist Salvador Dali.
For winning the top award, O'Reilly will take home an $11,900 (10,000 euro) cash prize and a Canon EOS 1D Mark II camera at an awards ceremony in Amsterdam April 23.
Judges chose the winning images from more than 83,000 images submitted by 4,400 photographers from 122 countries.
Winning images from the World Press Photo Awards can be viewed on the organization's
Web site.
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