W, ESPN The Magazine and The New York Times Magazine took home the three awards for excellence in magazine photography at last night’s National Magazine Awards gala, sponsored by the American Society of Media Editors.

The recently redesigned fashion magazine W took home the award for general excellence in magazine photography. W beat out GQ, Martha Stewart Living, National Geographic and The New York Times Magazine in this category.

ESPN The Magazine won the award for feature photography for its portfolio “Bodies We Want,” a series of nude photos of athletes shot by Art Streiber, Martin Schoeller, Sheryl Nields, Peter Hepak, Finlay McKay and several other photographers.

The prize for News and Documentary Photography went to The New York Times Magazine for the photo essay “The Shrine Down the Hall,” photographed by Ashley Gilbertson. Other finalists in this category were National Geographic, Time, Virginia Quarterly Review and another story in The New York Times Magazine.

This year, the award for magazine design went to GQ, for its June, August and December 2010 issues, and its design director, Fred Woodward. GQ beat out last year’s winner, Wired, as well as Esquire, Fortune and New York.

The awards presentation was preceded by a tribute delivered by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter to photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, who were killed on April 20 while covering the fighting in Misrata, Libya. Hetherington was a contributing photographer at Vanity Fair; Hondros had been a longtime contributor to Virginia Quarterly Review.

The evening began with an announcement by Larry Hackett, managing editor of People, that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had proclaimed May 9 to be Magazine Day in New York, a surprising piece of news to those of us who think every day is magazine day.

Photo © Ashley Gilbertson

Tags: ASME, National Magazine Awards

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 1:15 pm ET by Holly Hughes and is filed under Magazines, awards.