May 4, 2005
Honoring News Photos as Picture-Taking Evolves
Since handing out its first award in 1955 for a picture of a motorcyclist skidding out of control, the annual World Press Photo contest, produced by professionals for the press has grown into photojournalism's premier event. The 50th-anniversary exhibition, featuring prize-winning news images from 2004, opens tomorrow at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The New York Times reports.
This year's Photo of the Year award went to the Indian photographer Arko Datta for his shot of a woman in Cuddalore, in southern India, lamenting the death of a relative killed in the tsunami. World Press Photo, a nonprofit foundation based in Amsterdam, also handed out prizes to more than 60 other photographers from two dozen countries.
They were chosen from almost 70,000 entries submitted by more than 4,000 photographers, more than in any previous year.
The recent uptick in submissions may seem linked to the proliferation of cameras in more and more devices, like cellphones, a phenomenon gradually turning everyone into an aspiring shutterbug.
"The line between professional photojournalists and amateurs is thinning. And with more and more nonprofessionals opting to use their cameras to capture socially relevant images, it can only make photojournalism more popular," said Mr. Datta, who works for Reuters".
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