The Contest Designed by Photojournalists for Photojournalists

Compete with the very best in still and television photojournalism, in picture editing, and Web editing. Now in its seventh year, the Best of Photojournalism (BOP) is the world's leading digital photojournalism contest.

BOP is a project of the National Press Photographers Association.

1st Place, Best Published Picture Story (large markets)

James Whitlow Delano/Redux/Aera Weekly News Magazine, Asahi

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Kabul Psychiatry and Drug Dependency Hospital - Kabul Psychiatry and Drug Dependency Hospital -40,000 to 50,000 Kabulis, says Dr. Sayed Abdul Qreshi, deputy director of the capital’fs only government-run hospital for drug rehabilitation and psychiatry, are opium or heroin users in a city of nearly 3 million. In Kabul, legions of men inhabit nooks and niches in the bombed-out old city to smoke or shoot up heroin. Qreshi has 20 beds, in total, available for his drug detoxification program.

As for the psychiatric wing, there are just 40 beds, 20 for women and the same number for men. Psychiatric health care in Afghanistan is gothic. A few hours from Kabul, near Jalalabad, is the Mia Ali Baba Shrine, where the mentally ill are brought by their families and chained to trees on the grounds for 40 days. With a proper diet and prayer, the families believe the person will be cured. Most often, they are not.

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Kabuli man displays a hit of heroin on the foil from a cigarette pack as he prepares to smoke it in filthy, abandoned chamber in old city of Kabul, Afghanistan. There are 40,000 - 50,000 heroin and opium users in Kabul, says Dr. Qureshi, Deputy Director of Kabul’s only gov’ft run mental hospital, Psychiatric and Drug Dependency Hospital, Kabul.

Judging for the Best of Photojournalism is sponsored this year by:

On-site Still Photography judging was powered by Aperture.