Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/04/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>I am not sure that being nominated for a pulitzer, is really a test >of one's photographic ability. A few months a go we had a tragedy after >a basketball game a young man was murdered outside of the arena at the >Palestra (Univ. of Penn). A guy who had an auto everything camera with >built-in flash was walking down the street, he got the shot. He has >been nominated for the Pulizer. IMHO the Pulitzer for Photography is not the top award a photo journalist can receive..the best would be top award in either World Press or the POY in Missouri. Both are judged by photographers on a body of work and both represent some outstanding work (both also are pretty much an international competition). Looking at the past issues from both contests (my agency nominated some of my work for both last year so I got the photo books of the winning images) the stuff from World Press was better IMHO. The Photography Pulitzer has as many or more mediocre winners than it does knock your socks off images, I think. Everyday at my office I walk by a Pulitzer Prize winning photo (a former shareholder and part founder of the company won it in the mid 70's) and I think WHY???? I have seen images not make the edit for placement in a newspaper that were far better than this image. I remember a few years back some firefighter made a photo at a house fire and won the Pulitzer, nice image but most people working news have as strong, if not stronger, images in their book. And after seeing the World Press and POY images from that year I was astounded the Pulitzer winning image even made it to Honorable mention. However sometime the Pulitzer people do get it right...in this past years competition I saw Greg Gibson won again (makes either 2 or 3 for him I know at least 2 as he won in 1992 also)...he is an awesome photographer and one heck of a nice guy. All a contest shows is the likes and dislikes of the judges more than the quality of the photography IMHO ...now someone who wins contests repeatedly over time in numerous categories, then you can assume they are doing something right....but a one shot winner who never did anything else, and their book is full of boring images...well we all get lucky sometimes. Best regards, Harrison McClary email: harrison@mcclary.net http://www.mcclary.net preview my book: http://www.volmania.com