© Paul Hansen/Dagens Nyheter

Paul Hansen, photographer with the newspaper Dagens Nyheter of Sweden has been named the 2012 Newspaper Photographer of the year in the 70th Pictures of the Year International (POYi).

Hansen was honored for a portfolio that included coverage of the conflict in Gaza and a series on individuals whose lives were affected by the mass murders on the Norwegian island of Utoya in July 2011.

Damon Winter of The New York Times won second place. Dave Weatherwax of The Herald in Jasper, Indiana, won third place.

The judging of the POYi awards takes place over a three-week period. The Freelance/Agency Photographer of the Year category will be judged on Sunday, Feb. 17.

The POYi awards for portrait, campaign, spot news and feature photography were announced last week.

 * Photo, above: An image from “Death from Above-Gaza,” a feature by Paul Hansen of Dagens Nyheter.

Related articles:
Associated Press Wins Top Portrait Prizes at POYi

POYi Announces Campaign, Spot News and Feature Category Winners

© Craig Walker/Denver Post

Craig Walker of the Denver Post has won the Newspaper Photographer of the Year award in the 2011 Pictures of the Year International competition. Judges cited his portfolio for a balance of esthetics and journalistic content, and noted that it included “a stunning project” on war veterans who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. (Walker won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for a project about a teenager who joins the Army to fight in Iraq.)

Runners up for POYi’s Newspaper Photographer of the Year were Morten Germund and Jacob Ehrbahn of Politiken, a daily newspaper in Copenhagen, Denmark that has a reputation for the strength of its photojournalism.

Read the full story here.