First place: This is a strong image of an absolutely horrible tragedy. We appreciated the photographer captured multiple children being carried throughout the image and kept the school bus in the background for context.
Second place: Climate change is one of the most important stories of our time, seeing an increase in extreme weather events and natural disasters, like wildfires. As a result, many images will have to candidly show how this touches so many parts of our society. This graphic image, with its contrasting bright blue sky, is reminiscent of other photographs that document mass death. It’s hard to look at, but it shows the cattle killed by the fire in a clean and concise way, and we hope images like it will lead viewers to reflect on the challenges to come.
Category notes: Spot news is often a light category, but the images submitted told important stories with clear and to the point images. That said, we have two suggestions for the future. First, make sure that captions fully explain the scene. Important information contained in a series of images submitted for publication may be missing from individual photos submitted for awards. Second, double-check your file names when exporting. We believe an image that could have won this category was incorrectly placed in another!
Judges:
Kriston Jae Bethel/Freelance, Sarah Landwehr/Professor, Temple University
Judges Comments
First place: This is a strong image of an absolutely horrible tragedy. We appreciated the photographer captured multiple children being carried throughout the image and kept the school bus in the background for context. Second place: Climate change is one of the most important stories of our time, seeing an increase in extreme weather events and natural disasters, like wildfires. As a result, many images will have to candidly show how this touches so many parts of our society. This graphic image, with its contrasting bright blue sky, is reminiscent of other photographs that document mass death. It’s hard to look at, but it shows the cattle killed by the fire in a clean and concise way, and we hope images like it will lead viewers to reflect on the challenges to come. Category notes: Spot news is often a light category, but the images submitted told important stories with clear and to the point images. That said, we have two suggestions for the future. First, make sure that captions fully explain the scene. Important information contained in a series of images submitted for publication may be missing from individual photos submitted for awards. Second, double-check your file names when exporting. We believe an image that could have won this category was incorrectly placed in another!