Two VRP fellows win major photography awards

Two Vietnam Reporting Project fellows have taken second place in two major photojournalism contests.

Catherine Karnow placed second in the Features category of the 68th annual Pictures of the Year International, the oldest and one of the most prestigious photojournalism competitions in the world.

Catherine KarnowCatherine won for a photograph of Nguyen Thi Ly, 9, looking in the mirror. Ly is affected by Agent Orange.

Each year POYi honors the best documentary photography and photojournalism, setting the gold standard for excellence. The POYi exhibition, on display at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. from April to October 2011, will showcase a selection of the 240 winners from the most recent judging in February. Catherine’s image will also be shown at the Annenberg Museum of Photography in Los Angeles.

The mission of Pictures of the Year International is to extend the reach of photojournalists though educational public exhibitions and engage citizens worldwide with great documentary photography. POYi is a program of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Ed Kashi

Ed Kashi

Ed Kashi placed second in the Contemporary Issues category of the 54th annual World Press Photo Contest, widely considered to be the premier competition within photojournalism. Ed also won for a photograph of Nguyen Thi Ly of Danang. This photo also won top prize in the UNICEF Photo of the Year contest.

Catherine and Ed worked together in Vietnam on a multimedia story for the Vietnam Reporting Project.

The World Press Photo jury gave prizes in nine themed categories to 55 photographers of 23 nationalities from: Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Somalia, South Africa, Spain and the US. The number of participating photographers was 5,847, representing 125 different nationalities.

About Steven Chin

Steven Chin is the web editor for the Vietnam Reporting Project and principal of MKmedia, a San Francisco Bay Area consulting firm that provides Web development, content and social media strategies to companies and nonprofit organizations.

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