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.

Photography In Depth Web Finalists

(In Alphabetical Order)

“An American Spirit”
Kat Keene Hogue UNC Chapel Hill
“Christ Child House”
Brian Kaufman Detroit Free Press
“Hard Times”
Travis Fox washingtonpost.com
“Home on Leave”
Rick Gershon Getty Images
“A Living Profession”
Jose Corbella UNC Chapel Hill
“Pakistan on the Brink”
Travis Fox washingtonpost.com

In Depth Web Winners

1st
“Hard Times”
Travis Fox, washingtonpost.com
2nd
“Christ Child House”
Brian Kaufman, Detroit Free Press
3rd
“Pakistan on the Brink”
Travis Fox, washingtonpost.com

Judges’ Comments

Terry Bulger

The biggest problem we had was viewing many of the web stories, they were just hard to pull up and required too many steps to get them to play completely without hiccups.

While these stories have no limitations on length, sometimes they should. Just because you can do a 15 minute story doesn’t mean it’s going to hold the audience’s attention. I’m not trying to discourage length, just keep that in mind.

The web is obviously a valuable outlet for stories that can spend long amounts of time introducing and observing the main characters in a story. That and the subjects the web providers choose to focus on are two of its greatest strengths.

Scott Jensen

Web visual journalism is evolving into a hybrid of still pictures and video. I don’t think it’s wrong. But I am curious about the phenomenon. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of taste. One piece we saw showed a series of 5 or 10 still images from the same angle and focal length exposed what looked within a few seconds. The edited result loosely resembled video, except with no sound. It wasn’t nearly as compelling as what I imagine the video version could have been. I suppose it is more artistic.

I want to portray reality. I occasionally had issues watching these pieces when the next shot would come, I expected it to move, and it didn’t because it was a still frame. Reality was suspended in those cases. Action just doesn’t freeze in real life. It reminded me I was watching a video. This goes against my fundamental understanding of how I believe visual storytelling should go. Again, I’m accepting it. It’s just another style.

The video journalist’s commitment to producing “Hard Times” is the primary reason it came out on top. I really enjoyed “Christ Child House” and “Home on Leave.” I thought both used still images effectively sprinkled in with the video.

Jon Knorr

“Hard Times” showed a lot of dedication. The photographer took a trip across the country, starting in Santa Barbara and ending Washington DC. Each story tackled something different focusing on the election and economic climate. Each story could have stood on its own. An obviously well done piece of journalism.

“Christ Child House” was a story about kids in the foster care system. The access was very good; the kids that they talked to were able to bring you into what they had to go through and how little they had. It could have used more video to tell the story and more natural sound.

“Pakistan on the Brink” was a 3 part series and an intro. The individual stories took you into life in Pakistan. The access to the Islamist tribal region was tremendous. It definitely showed this difference between the tribal regions and the rest of Pakistan.

Shane McEachern

another good category, not quite as good as the FEATURE but it was enjoyable to watch some of these entries. It would be nice for NPPA members to check any/all of these out.... they are quite inspirational and offer some ideas on the way to get things done when telling a story.

“HARD TIMES” - was enjoyable, nicely shot, great subject matter, I simply love stuff like this.... very interesting and should be done more often by journalists.

“CHRIST CHILD HOUSE” - the best shooting of the bunch IMHO. Very powerful stuff, a little slow in spots but the overall quality of this production is something everybody should see. Editing was also on the high end of the stories we saw today. Very minimalistic production but it suited the subject matter. I enjoyed the choice of characters, The young kids really are way beyond their years....

“AMERICAN SPIRIT” - a nice series on the hard times coming to different types of workers.... a must see. Well shot, well edited, nicely done.

To me, reality is always been more interesting than fiction.... With stations such as HBO, IFC, and Showtime offering slots to people with documentary ideas, and documentaries taking the box office by storm in the last 5 years.... the interest is definitely out there for pieces like these.

WEB IN DEPTH and WEB FEATURE offer intriguing views into subjects we simply don’t have the time cover anymore at the local angle. Perhaps if we did, some of the local news viewers would come back.

Tom Sharkey

Here again was another category where several of the entries wouldn’t play so we were left with what would play. A lot of good stories here, probably the one glaring thing about all of them are too many talking heads. I don’t know if the video wasn’t there to cover them or whether it was a conscious choice to leave it out.

“Hard Times” was the winner I think for total investment alone. They traveled across the country taking a snapshot of the American condition each place they stopped.

“Christ Child House” was a peek inside a residential treatment center for kids which had a good emotional component.

“Pakistan on the Brink” had some vital information and gave you a sense of what it’s like in that country now. If I were to offer any advise to the folks who entered it would be to not forget about natural sound as another dimension in storytelling.

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