We were surprised to see very few entries for this category (doesn’t anyone run out to cover breaking news anymore?) which made our selection stand out quickly. We felt the first place told the horror of the shooting without picturing the victim. The photographer worked to get a storytelling accident photo from a high angle with our second place choice. Third was a nicely composed captured moment of desperate emotion. We do want to add that photographers should try to use more creativity when on the scene of spot news. Just being there is not enough. It’s one thing to show up when there spot news happening in front of you and it’s an easy grab but when you show up to a scene and it is not easy pickings, photographers need to work harder to find a storytelling, image that is also visually grabbing. We saw too many generalized scene shots with no focus of subject matter. Remember: It’ s not enough to show what people are doing, but you have to show how people feel about what they’re doing.
Judges:
Nancy L. Ford/Freelance, Mark DiOrio/Freelance, Sarah Condon/Observer-Dispatch
Judges Comments
We were surprised to see very few entries for this category (doesn’t anyone run out to cover breaking news anymore?) which made our selection stand out quickly. We felt the first place told the horror of the shooting without picturing the victim. The photographer worked to get a storytelling accident photo from a high angle with our second place choice. Third was a nicely composed captured moment of desperate emotion. We do want to add that photographers should try to use more creativity when on the scene of spot news. Just being there is not enough. It’s one thing to show up when there spot news happening in front of you and it’s an easy grab but when you show up to a scene and it is not easy pickings, photographers need to work harder to find a storytelling, image that is also visually grabbing. We saw too many generalized scene shots with no focus of subject matter. Remember: It’ s not enough to show what people are doing, but you have to show how people feel about what they’re doing.