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| © Paolo Pellegrin / Magnum Photos |
| An image from Pellegrin's winning essay, "True Pain: Israel and Hizbullah." Click photo to view more images. |
Paolo Pellegrin, Q. Sakamaki, Kristen Ashburn and Farah Nosh took the photography prizes at the 68th Annual Overseas Press Club awards, presented by CBS News anchor Katie Couric at a dinner Thursday night in New York.
Pellegrin won the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for his photo essay "True Pain: Israel and Hizbullah," parts of which were first published in Newsweek. The 43-year-old Magnum photographer received an honorable mention nod for the Capa award in 2002, but this is his first outright win.
The Capa award is given to the photographer who "best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise." Pellegrin, working primarily in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, was injured when a missile exploded near him in 2006. But the jury recognized not only his courage, but also his photographic eye: "His photographs of the anxieties and terrors of war are universal images. They are full of austere beauty even as they tell a damning truth about the brutal nature of armed conflict and its terrible effects on civilian populations."
Sakamaki , a photographer with Redux Pictures, won the Olivier Rebbot Award for his essay, "Sri Lanka: War Without End." His winning work documented the struggle between the Sri Lankan government and the militant secessionist group the Tamil Tigers, a conflict that has been ongoing since the 1970s. Sakamaki has covered the wars in Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Bosnia, Kosovo, Algeria, Iraq and Liberia, as well. The OPC jury agreed that Sakamaki's "powerfully cathartic images of civilian casualties and refugees told the most poignant story in the competition."
Ashburn, represented by Contact Press Images, received the John Faber Award for "The African Scourge," first published by The Los Angeles Times. The jury felt that Ashburn's essay "showed an understanding, compassion, dedication and warmth for her subjects" that "created an emotional response from the members of the jury and was key to her selection as the winner. In her photographs Ashburn allowed her subjects to speak rather than the photographs or the situation."
Nosh, a photographer with Getty Images who was featured in the Sept/Oct 2006 issue of American Photo, won the Feature Photography Award for "The Other Side of War," first published in Time. In describing that essay, which offers an intimate look into the private lives of an Iraqi family in Baghdad, the jury wrote: "In startling contrast to the typical media portrayal of Iraqis as either victims or combatants, Nosh presents her subjects as ordinary people, in moments of shelter from the war raging outside the walls of their home. The judges found her work to be extraordinary, not only for the unique perspective she brings to the subject, but for the poignancy and eloquence of her visual language."
Check out the photo gallery for images from Pellegrin and Sakamaki's winning photo essays or see the complete list of winners at www.opcofamerica.org.
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