Emilio Morenatti, Greg Kahn, Picked As BOP's Photojournalists Of The Year
By Donald R. Winslow
© 2010 News Photographer magazine
ST. PETERSBURG, FL (March 26, 2010) – Emilio Morenatti of the Associated Press has been selected as the National Press Photographers Association's Best Of Photojournalism 2010 Photojournalist of the Year (Large Markets), and Greg Kahn of the Naples Daily News was picked as the Best Of Photojournalism 2010 Photojournalist of the Year (Small Markets).
And in their final selection of this year's contest, the judges picked a photograph by Barbara Davidson of the Los Angeles Times as the 2010 "Best In Show." Davidson's picture of U.S. Army Sgt. Major Leroy Walker crying during the singing of "Amazing Grace" during a candlelight vigil for soldiers gunned down at Fort Hood, TX, in November 2009 also won first place in the contest's General News category.
Morenatti was critically injured in August 2009 while on assignment with the U.S. military in southern Afghanistan when a bomb planted in the desert was run over by the vehicle he was riding in with other journalists. Morenatti's left foot was amputated at a military hospital in Kandahar, and he was brought to the States to a specialty hospital in Baltimore where he was fitted with a prosthesis and underwent rehabilitation at the University of Maryland Medical Center's Shock Trauma Center.
His boss at the Associated Press, photography director Santaigo Lyon, told News Photographer magazine today that Morenatti is "fully recovered, and he's running 2 miles a day on his prosthesis. He's quite a character!" The photographer will return to work for AP starting in April and he will be based in Barcelona.
"I am thrilled for Emilio," Lyon said today. "He's an extremely talented photographer and well deserving of this prestigious award. I'm sure this will be a great boost for him as he transitions back to work following his injury in Afghanistan."
"This is a huge honor," Morenatti told News Photographer magazine today from his car on the side of a road in Spain where he stopped to call. "I am so very happy. It is a big challenge now, to do what I used to do every day as much as I can. But I am improving every day. I'm running more now than I was before I was wounded. I'm in better shape now! This is my aim, to go back to my job. This is the biggest challenge I'm facing right now."
Morenatti says that this weekend he is scheduled to do his first photography since the bombing.
"With this news, I'm even more happy. Everything is new for me again, and now I feel even more motivated."
Morenatti has years of experience in war zones. A Spaniard who had been based in Islamabad, he has worked for the AP in Afghanistan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. He was the University of Missouri School of Journalism's Pictures of the Year International Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2009.
In 2006, Morenatti was kidnapped in Gaza City and freed unharmed after 15 hours. The following year, he suffered a broken leg from a fragment of a stun grenade while covering a protest in a West Bank village.
The runner-up to Morenatti's portfolio is Paula Bronstein of Getty Images, and third place is John Moore of Getty Images.
“The winner of the Photojournalist of the Year for Large Markets demonstrated an uncommon appreciation for the subjects," judge Monte Trammer said. "He showed the ability to see ordinary events in a different way, and the photographer portrayed beauty in unexpected places.” Trammer is the recently retired publisher of Gannett Co., Inc.
Regarding the selection of Davidson's photograph for Best Of Show, judge Sherman Williams said, "The judges had a tough time choosing between the two photographs that made it to the final round. The Fort Hood image came out the winner because we felt in a lot of ways that was the one where a photographer had to look to find the image. The subject told the sadness of the story. This is a gripping image, with great composition and use of natural light. It tugs on your heart strings.”
Davidson is also this year's winner of Cliff Edom's "New American Award" for her documentary essay "Frozen Land, Forgotten People."
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In the Photojournalist of the Year (Small Markets) category, former Washington Times photojournalist Katie Falkenberg was the runner-up and former Washington Times photojournalist Mary F. Calvert's portfolio was third.
“It was clear to the judges that the first place winner [Greg Kahn] was able to bring to the table both a diverse group of excellent single photographs and picture stories for and entry that the judges chose as the best portfolio in the small market," judge Sandy Ciric said.
"Senior managing editor Eric Strachan at the newspaper has really helped me to develop my storytelling ability over the last year," Kahn told News Photographer magazine today when he learned of his win. "Working with him one-on-one has let me learn so much from his editing, and then the next time I go out I remember it and it gets even better. You need someone like that who sees the direction you're going and to push you there."
Kahn feels like the difference between his winning portfolio this year and last year's runner-up photographs is in his storytelling abilities. "I think I took a big leap forward in my stories this year," he said today. "I think that last year I had some of the tools, and by seeking a lot of advice from my editors and by really jumping into my stories this year, putting everything I have into them, this year I took a big leap forward."
The Naples Daily News is the kind of paper that encourages photographers to go out and find stories, Kahn said. "It's nice to have a newspaper that backs your ideas. Like with the story to follow a Marine recruit. When I needed to go up to South Carolina to cover it for a few days they said, 'Okay, drive up there, spend a couple of days and get that piece of the story.' That makes a huge difference."
He said another story in this year's portfolio, about the economic crash that hit Florida, was important for their readers. "It's been an ongoing effort since last July. Our area was hit so hard that the reporter and I felt that we really needed to comprehensively cover what was going on as the economy started to hit a different class of people."
Kahn is a magna cum laude graduate of George Washington University where he majored in visual communications with studies concentrated in photography and graphic design. His photography career started when he was one of 10 recipients of a week-long trip to study under National Geographic photographers in San Diego during an annual North American Nature Photography Summit. After shooting for his hometown newspaper in Wakefield, RI, Kahn shot for the Independent Tribune in Concord, NC, before joining the staff in Naples.
In last year's contest he was the runner-up to James Gregg of the Arizona Daily Star for NPPA's Photojournalist of the Year (Small Markets) title, and in 2008 Kahn was the NPPA Region 6 Photographer of the Year.
This year some 3,000 entrants from 147 countries submitted more than 50,000 still images, video, and Web entries in the 2010 Best Of Photojournalism competition.
NPPA's contest has remained a free contest with no entry fees since it's beginning.
NPPA's 2010 Best Of Photojournalism competition is sponsored this year by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, ibiblio, Camera Bits, Ohio University, and the St. Petersburg Times.
Read about the other winners in Picture Story and Individual Categories
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