Tomás Munita and Bryan Denton will receive Getty Images and Chris Hondros Fund Awards at a June 7 benefit and silent auction, the Hondros Fund has announced. The Chris Hondros Fund is a non-profit photojournalism organization founded by Christina Piaia to honor her late fiancé, who was killed in a mortar attack while covering the conflict in Libya in 2011. The Fund “advances the work of photojournalists who espouse [Chris Hondros's] legacy and vision, and sponsors fellowships, grantmaking and education to raise understanding of the issues facing reporters in conflict zones.”

Munita, a Chilean photojournalist who has worked in Latin America and the Middle East, among other places, is being honored for his “exceptional photographic ability coupled with a spirited commitment to the craft of photojournalism,” Piaia said in a statement. Munita will receive a grant of $20,000.

Denton, a photojournalist based in Beirut, was named a finalist for the award and will receive a grant of $5000.

“Chris was dedicated to documenting the compassion, violence and frailty that encompasses so much of our world today. It was through his personal vision and determination that were able to share some of the most powerful images from the large and small events that make up our common humanity,” said Hondros Fund board member and Getty executive Pancho Bernasconi in a statement. “The Chris Hondros Fund is proud to honor Tomás Munita and Bryan Denton and support their work to create a visual history that brings shared human experiences into the public eye.”

Related Articles:
Andrea Bruce Wins Getty Images & Chris Hondros Fund Award
Tim Hetherington, Chris Hondros: Remembering Them as They Lived

Awards and Competitions:

2013 Pierre and Alexandra Boulat Award
The Pierre and Alexandra Boulat Award for journalism was created in honor of the late VII Photo founder Alexandra Boulat and her father, Pierre. Sponsored by Canon, the award carries an 8,000 Euro prize, and is given to “a professional photographer of any age, sex or nationality who wishes to cover a social, economic, political or cultural issue in a journalistic manner.” Entries for the award are due by June 7, 2013, and the winner will be announced at Visa Pour l’Image in Perpignan in September. Entry is free.

18th Annual Photo Competition Exhibition
Seattle’s Photo Center Northwest is accepting entries for their annual juried exhibition. Entries selected by this year’s juror, collector and curator John Bennette, will be exhibited at Photo Center Northwest in August and September of this year. The deadline for entries is May 18, 2012. (more…)

The August 2012 cover of National Geographic. This issue was part of NG’s winning submission in the Photography category of the National Magazine Awards. It features an image from Aaron Huey’s series on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. © National Geographic/photo by Aaron Huey.

The American Society of Magazine Editors announced the winners of the 2013 National Magazine Awards last night in New York City. National Geographic won in four categories, including Photography and Multimedia. For the Photography category, National Geographic submitted three issues of the magazine, which included work by Aaron Huey, Andrew Parkinson, Carsten Peter,  Alex Webb and Michael Yamashita (August 2012); Robert Clark, Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky, Rob Kendrick, Stephanie Sinclair and Brian Skerry (September 2012); and Robert Clark, Carolyn Drake, Tim Layman, Michael “Nick” Nichols, Paolo Pellegrin and Mark Thiessen (December 2012). National Geographic won the Multimedia category for “Cheetahs on the Edge,” which included still images by Frans Lanting.

In the Feature Photography category, W magazine took home the prize for “Good Kate, Bad Kate,” a fashion editorial shot by Steven Klein and featuring model Kate Moss. The work appeared in W’s March 2012 issue.

Other notable winners last night included New York, which took home two awards including top honors as the Magazine of the Year, and TIME, which won the Design category.

Since 1966 the trade organization, in association with the Columbia University School of Journalism, has been recognizing excellence in publishing. This year almost 260 publications entered work for consideration in the annual awards. The 330 judges included magazine editors, art directors, photo editors and journalism educators.

For a complete list of winners, visit www.magazine.org.

Related Articles:

Helping Communities Speak for Themselves: Aaron Huey’s Pine Ridge Community Storytelling Project
Photojournalist Aaron Huey sought a new way to tell the stories of the Oglala Lakota living on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and found it with an online tool that enables the residents to create and share their personal histories. (For subscribers only.)

From Volcanoes to Glaciers, Carsten Peter on Shooting in Challenging Conditions
The National Geographic photographer talks about doing whatever it takes to get the shot, whether it’s from the crater of a volcano to the interior of a glacier. (For subscribers only.)

Anatomy of an iPad App: A Photo Archive That’s Also an App
Michael “Nick” Nichols grew weary of offering his wildlife photography for free online, so he relauched his Web site as a low-cost iPad application. (For subscribers only.)

W Magazine: Past, Present, Future
Stefano Tonchi on the importance of photographers to the magazine’s history, how the popularity of online video is influencing editors, and what he sees for the future of W and the magazine business. (For subscribers only.)

The Transported of the KwaNdebele: Travellers from KwaNdebele buying weekly season tickets at the PUTCO bus depot in Marabastad, Pretoria, 1983. © David Goldbatt/The Goodman Gallery

Imagine photographs by Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson.  Wait a moment, then imagine some more by Diane Arbus and others by Sebastian Salgado.  Good.  Being the sort of person who reads this blog, you probably just conjured a dozen or more vividly remembered images in your mind’s eye.

Now imagine a photograph by David Goldblatt.  Thought so.  Unless you’re a fellow South African or one of his fans, you probably drew a blank.  He’s one of the world’s most honored living photographers, a man who is greatly respected and, yet, is little known.  It’s a paradox.

On Wednesday evening, when the International Center of Photography [ICP] confers on him its Cornell Capa Lifetime Achievement Award, Goldblatt will collect yet another prestigious award.  He’ll add this to his resume, right above the 2006 Hasselblad Award, 2009 Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, and the 2010 Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement.

As prestigious as those honors surely are, they’re little more than the icing on a magnificent cake.  Over a 50-year career, Goldblatt has been the subject of exhibitions at major museums in Europe, Africa, and North America, including solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1998, and the Jewish Museum, in 2010.  In addition, leading publishers of photography have produced a dozen books devoted to his work.

It’s an impressive list of accomplishments by any measure.  So, why isn’t Goldblatt’s photography as well known as his name?  And what’s his photography all about anyway?  (more…)

Daniel Martinez Bazaldua, a photographer with the newspaper Vanguardia, was found dead yesterday in the northern Mexico City of Saltillo, the Associated Press reports. He had been missing since Tuesday, when he left the Vanguardia office in the afternoon.

The bodies of Martinez Bazaldua, age 22, and another man identified as Julian Zamora, 23, were found dismembered on a street. According to state prosecutors, the body parts were dumped along with a  hand-written message saying that the Zetas drug cartel was responsible for the killings. Saltillo is located in northern Coahuila, a state where Zetas is known to operate.

Coahuila state Attorney General Homero Ramos told reporters that investigators had indications both men “were participating in illegal activities.” Vanguardia, which hired Martinez a month ago to shoot for its society pages, rejected the attorney general’s claim, which was made before any criminal investigation into the murders.

In a statement issued yesterday, Carlos Lauría of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said, “It is irresponsible for authorities to reach conclusions before conducting a full investigation.” CPJ called on Mexican authorities “to fully investigate this crime, examine all possible motives, and bring those responsible to justice.”

CPJ reports that according to a Vanguardia editor who asked to remain anonymous, “Photographers covering the society section in Mexico have been targeted by organized crime groups in the past for inadvertently capturing images of cartel members, according to CPJ research.”

In May, three news photographers who covered organized crime and drug violence in Veracruz were found dead and dismembered.
CPJ reports that more than 50 journalists have been killed or disappeared in the last six years

Related Article
Three News Photographers Murdered in Veracruz, Mexico

©Fabio Bucciarelli

Fabio Bucciarelli, who has covered the civil war in Syria for Agence France-Presse, has won the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award, the Overseas Press Club (OPC) has announced. Bucciarelli won the award for a portfolio of images titled “Battle to Death,” showing Free Syrian Army soldiers battling intensely against government forces in the streets of Aleppo.

In announcing the award, OPC said, “The images from this portfolio put you ‘in the moment’ and have a palatable sense of urgency. There is a consistency to the images that helps the viewer identify with the subjects and the perils they are encountering.”

The award, given annually by the OPC, recognizes photographers who have shown exceptional enterprise and courage while covering world news events.

In other OPC award categories, freelance photographer Samuel James won the Olivier Rebbot Award for  best photographic reporting from abroad in magazines and books. James won for “The Water of My Land,” a story about oil production and its consequence in the Niger Delta. The story was published in Harper’s magazine.

Bernat Armangue of The Associated Press won the OPC’s John Faber Award for feature photography. Armangue won for his portfolio of images about the conflict in Gaza.

Oded Balilty, also of The Associated Press, also won a feature photography award for his story about an ultra-orthodox wedding near Tel Aviv.

An awards ceremony will be held tonight in New York City. A complete list of award recipients is available on the OPC Web site.

RJ Sangosti of The Denver Post and David Weatherwax of The Herald in Jasper, Indiana were named Photojournalists of the Year in the Best of Photojournalism (BOP) competition, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) has announced.

There are two winners because NPPA recognizes a winner for both larger and smaller markets. Sangosti won in the larger market division. Runners up were Damon Winter and Tyler Hicks, both of The New York Times.

Weatherwax won the Photojournalist of the Year title for the smaller market division for the second year in a row. (The Herald has a circulation of 11,300). Runners up this year were Tom Kelly IV (Daily Local News, Westchester, PA) and Gerry Melendez (The State, Columbia, South Carolina).

Patrick Smith, a freelancer for Getty Images, won the Sports Photojournalist of the Year title. Runners-up were Quinn Rooney (Getty Images) and Bill Frakes (Sports Illustrated).

Aaron Huey, shooting for National Geographic Magazine, is the winner of Cliff Edom’s “New America Award” for his photographic essay, “In The Shadow Of Wounded Knee.”

In the competition’s editing division, Mark Edelson of The Palm Beach Post won Newspaper Picture Editor of the Year, and Jamie Wellford of Newsweek was named Magazine Picture Editor of the Year.

Judges for the BOP still photo competition were photographers Amy Sancetta of the Associated Press and Jack Gruber of USA Today; and Boyzell Hosey, the director of photography and multimedia for the St. Petersburg Times. More details about the still photo competition are posted on the NPPA site at this link.

Judges for the BOP photo editing awards were picture editor Molly Roberts of Smithsonian magazine, photographer Matt Moyer, and Bert Fox, photography director of The Charlotte Observer. More information about the photo editing awards are posted on the NPPA site at this link.

Related:
Paolo Pellegrin Named POYi Freelance Photographer of the Year
Paul Hansen Wins POYi Newspaper Photographer of the Year

© Davide Monteleone/VII. From Red Thistle (published by Dewi Lewis)

As investigations into the alleged Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev focus on their connection to Chechnya and to the region of Dagestan, where Tamerlan spent time in January 2012, we’re once again looking at photographic studies of the North Caucusus. This volatile and troubled region may be little known to many Americans, but it’s been the subject of in-depth examination by photographers including Stanley Greene, Thomas Dworzak and Davide Monteleone. They have explored not only the violence in the region, but its culture, rituals and legacy of ethnic and political tensions.

Talking about his 2012 book Red Thistle, which explores life in the Northern Caucusus, David Monteleone told PDN in  2012 that he wanted to learn more about the people in the region than he could learn from media reports about terrorist attacks and human rights abuses. The book is a collection of images he took over several years in the republics around Chechnya, including Dagestan, Abkhazia (the Georgian Republic), Ingushetia, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia and the disputed territory of South Ossetia.

“For every work that I do, I want to show the daily life of people,” Monteleone told PDN. “Then of course I try to get a little bit deeper and try to find my own vision, but it’s my curiosity first of all.”

People he met in the region who were hospitable and welcoming, he says, but “the authorities were not.” Many of his images were shot indoors, conveying the constraints he experienced. “You have this wild, big [landscape], and at the same time the people are sort of afraid of moving, they cannot reach some places. A lot of areas are closed because of antiterrorist operations, you cannot go to the mountains because it’s forbidden because of military operations … [The people] are restricted in a way, in the mind and physically.”

You can read Monteleone’s full interview in “Disputed Territories: Exploring Life in the Northern Caucuses” on PDNOnline.

* Photo, above: A woman in the Dagestan village of Gimri during the sacrifice of a bull. © Davide Monteleone/VII
Related articles
Disputed Territories: Exploring Life in the Northern Caucusus
Photo Gallery: More Images from Red Thistle

Hirn’s photo story about one of the Boston bombing suspects appeared in a Boston University student magazine in 2010.

Johannes Hirn, the former Boston University journalism student who shot a photo essay about one of the Boston bombing suspects, has removed the images from a PhotoShelter website and is referring licensing requests to Barcroft Media.

The images, comprising a 2010 photo essay called “Will Box for Passport,” feature the so-called “black hat” Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The story is about Tsarnaev’s bid to become an Olympic boxer, and shows him training in a mixed martial arts gym in Boston.

The story was published in 2010 in a graduate student magazine of Boston University’s College of Communication, where Hirn was a student. Hirn shot the story as a final assignment for a photojournalism course he took while at BU, according to an NPPA report.

Tsarnaev was killed last night in a shoot-out with police. After he was identified, news outlets found Hirn’s photo essay. Reporters used Hirn’s photo captions to profile Tsarnaev.  A number of media outlets have also copied and distributed Hirn’s photos without permission before he removed them from the Photoshelter site.

“We have seen multiple outlets lift screenshots of the images, but the hi res images are not accessible through PhotoShelter without direct permission from the photographer,” Andrew Fingerman of Photoshelter told PDN just before Hirn took the pictures off the site.

Hirn announced that Barcroft Media–a UK-based licenser of editorial content–is the exclusive distributor of the images. He also announced,  “I am not available for interview or comment.”

Hirn earned a PhD in particle physics before attending BU, where he earned a degree in science journalism, according to the NPPA report. He  now works in communications for an astrophysics lab at the University of Toronto.

Intent on making a quick buck from the Boston Marathon bombing, a self-publisher allegedly offered an e-book full of stolen news photos for sale on Amazon.com, titled “The Boston Bombings First Photos.”

The NPPA reported yesterday that the book, published by a man identified as Steve Goldstein, included more than 60 images used without permission from The Associated Press, Getty Images and The New York Times. Goldstein was charging $7.99 per download.

Amazon has removed the book, apparently in response to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notices from copyright holders.

According to the NPPA report, a New York Times attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Goldstein. In his response, Goldstein wrote, “We will stop using the photos that you mention. Sorry for the use without permission.”

For more details, see the NPPA report.