Best of Photojournalism 2009: Video News Photography: Winners

Clips from the Video News Photography and Editing winners in the Best of Photojournalism 2009 are now viewable at Poynter Online.

Chat with Al Tompkins and the BOP TV judges — live each day at 12:00 EST. Ask the judges questions and hear what they love and have learned from the entries they have seen each day.

Team Entry Finalists

(In Alphabetical Order)

“Ball of Fury”
Darren Durlach & Stan Heist, WBFF/Baltimore
“A Day in the Life of Animal Control”
Rob Collet & Chencho Flores, KTUL/Tulsa
“Emma’s Class”
Anne Herbst & Dave Delozier, KUSA/Denver
“A Link to the Lost”
Ron Johnson, Eric Gedrose, & Brad Swagger, KMSP/Minneapolis

Team Entry Winners

1st
“A Day in the Life of Animal Control”
Rob Collet & Chencho Flores, KTUL/Tulsa
2nd
“A Link to the Lost”
Ron Johnson, Eric Gedrose, & Brad Swagger, KMSP/Minneapolis
3rd
“Ball of Fury”
Darren Durlach & Stan Heist, WBFF/Baltimore
HM
“Emma’s Class”
Anne Herbst & Dave Delozier, KUSA/Denver

Judges’ Comments

Terry Bulger

  1. Animal Control....Funny and just a great story told thru the characters employed by animal control and the characters they meet along the route. Nice capturing of moments along the way, especially the angry and less than cooperative woman, as well as the catch of the two cats.

  2. Link to Lost- Well done, with a good use of reporter involvement that added and did not detract from the telling of the story.

    Nice pictures as well. Unique idea, well done to tie the story back to the victim and show how this device may have prevented it.

  3. Ball of Fury....flawless photography and editing...completely captured the emotion of the day and the event. If the Boxer was more of an interesting character I’d have liked it even more. But overall a terrific story.

  4. Emma’s Class- Poignant.

Scott Jensen

Many of the stories could have been shot by one photographer. We wanted to reward the ones that obviously needed multiple people to tell a great story. Even though I have an issue with the way Animal Control is structured, it stands out as having the best moments. That’s why it won. A 3-2 vote determined Link over Fury for second place. Link’s complexity and true team spirit won over Fury’s pure journalism. Fury has the best sequencing of any piece in this category. I think Emma’s Class is the best team shoot. The story could not have been told as effectively if only one photographer had been assigned.

Jon Knorr

There was a lot of variation between the stories in this category. Though most of the stories were well shot and edited, it did seem like most of the stories could have been shot by one person. The biggest discussion was between Ball of Fury and Link to the Lost. Both of the stories were well shot but the payoff seemed to be better on Link to the Lost. The clear winner was the Animal Control, the characters in the story had the judges chuckling through out. There were some good surprises and the shots of the cats being caught were impressive.

Shane McEachern

Overall a lot of these stories had a beginning, middle but lacked a good ending. Some of them just simply ended. WHAM! Some of the stories merited team shoots, others could have been covered by a single photojournalist. We thought there was a clear first place winner and a fourth place winner. We had a little trouble with 2nd and 3rd place in deciding which way to go.

A Day in the Life of Animal Control - Nice story. Story structure wasn’t completely appetizing, would have most likely flipped some things around... and the start wasn’t my favorite but it had me by the end. “A Day..” had some hilarious moments, good attention to detail, and sound carried this story along nicely. It also had the best feline wrangling on videotape I’ve ever seen! Two cameras worked well on this effort, editing was seamless, everything just worked. Nice effort.

Link to the Lost - We were divided on this story right down to the end. The piece has talent participating in the story.... which I am not a big fan of (but it seems this is a direction newsrooms are taking more and more these days). With some of the judges this was a problem. The story structure was unique and out of the ordinary and this helped the story win second place, along with a nice edit. Nice use of effects, not overdone. ”Link” also had a nice reward at the e nd with the subject matter. Lawmakers should be shown this package and based on this evidence some sort of law should be passed. Makes sense to me.

Ball of Fury - Technically flawless (other than the very end of the story with some weak shots ending the piece). The best shooting of the TEAM ENTRY bunch, edited was very good. The story lacked emotion and ended abruptly losing that emotional payoff, and left me actually waiting for more to happen. This may have due to the boxing match being so short.... I don’t know. It just didn’t grab me the way I wanted it to.

Emma’s Class - Nice little story, good team shoot, felt it could have been a bit longer, a little more to the story line. With the subject matter being what it was I wanted to feel more watching this piece. It sort of fizzled out towards the end. The ending reminded me of Joaquin Phoenix’s appearence on Letterman a few weeks ago. He was there but he really “didn’t show up” as Letterman said. 1st 3/4 of the piece really had something going on, the end just came and went, taking the golden cup right out “Emma’s” hands.

Tom Sharkey
  1. A Day In the Life of Animal Control: A lot of great and funny moments and some great suprises. This one had us laughing the whole time. It was fast paced but the part with the cows kind of dragged. Other than that the story had a good structure and was perfectly told as a photoessay.
  2. A link to the lost: There was a lot of discussion as to which stories should go 2nd & 3rd, Ball of Fury and this one. Link is a reporter driven piece, the reporter was at the center of the story, but it was well told with a lot of suprises. This one also seemed to be a true team story, as they used several cameras. There was a bunch of audio drop-outs but we overlooked them, and story was really long, it could have been shorter and tighter.
  3. Ball of Fury: It was fast paced and well shot. Some of the best moments were the reaction shots and the story revealed itself as it went along. Every was in aggrement though that there wasn’t that big payoff in the end, still it was a well crafted story.
  4. Emmas Class: It was short, fast and cute. Had some good moments that tugged at your heart. Good suprise the web cam!

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