National Clip Winner

I just found out that a photo story I did when I was back at the Daily News-Record won second place in the NPPA National Clip Contest. SWEET!

The essay was a collection of photos of items that the local firefighters had recovered from fire scenes. I posted the essay on this site a few months back. (See BURNED)

I first thought about doing the essay a couple of years ago while shooting a fire safety display at the local mall. The Harrisonburg Fire Department was putting their yearly event and they always display items recovered from fires. I could not help but notice how much many of the items looked like modern art. It was weird to see items from tragic circumstances in this way. I thought that photographing them as art may entice people to spend more time looking at them and in turn think more about what happens when people are not careful and safety conscience.

Although it may have been my idea, my wife, Jenny, was kind enough to remind me that she was the one who motivated me to get off my ass and actually shoot the damn thing. As usual she was right.

The other winners from November 2009 can be found on the NPPA website (click here).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 8:16 pm. It is filed under Announcements and tagged with photojournalism, photojournalist, Virginia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.