Working the Wire

I almost can’t believe it, I feel like I’m on a cloud, but I have won second place in the National Press Photographer’s Association, Best of Photojournalism 2007 contest. It’s for the story, Train to El Norte.
To have this project win, a project which I put so much of myself into and did freelance – with no support or backing whatsoever, leaves me feeling such pride. It never ran in any publication and I had a hard time after thinking about the value of a piece that the public at large would never see. It was especially hard knowing that the people who shared so much with me would not have their stories seen. I’m a journalist and the work I do is for people to look at, discuss, and learn from. So it went on my web site and was submitted to various publications with no effect. And yet in a surprise email from Chip Litherland (THANK YOU CHIP!) who helped me with the edit (as did John Loomis, thanks John!), I find out that not only I value the project, that I wasn’t crazy, that I placed second for not just a single taken from the story but for the story in its entirety.

And I am so, so happy. Beyond words really, despite how cheesy that sounds.

I know a contest alone shouldn’t be the measure of my worth as a photographer, that contests are subjective, as is photography herself. Yet the acknowledgement from my peers that this project is valid, is important, is strong, gives something back to me I almost lost in my year of solo, freelance work. A sense of community, of worth, but most importantly, of eyes looking on work that I put so much into, and that means even more to the people in those pictures, whose stories are finally seen.

The AP has posted a slideshow that I produced for them on families that have become Priced Out of the Housing Market and become homeless as a result. In their voices they speak to their experience in the DC housing system. Portraits were shot on a neutral background to emphasize the humanity of each person. By isolating them from the homeless shelter environment I intended to humanize these people for the viewers.