Taking a Prize Winning Shot

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of American (Hungarian-born) publisher Joseph Pulitzer, and is administered by Columbia University in New York City. Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of these, each winner receives a certificate and a US$10,000 cash award.The winner in the public service category of the journalism competition is awarded a gold medal.

My interest in Pulitzer Prize winning photographs arouse when I happened to come across a news on the web reporting a 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner photo. It was a picture of a man sitting on a sofa holding his mouth with his hand. I tried to understand what is so specific about this picture, but I couldn’t, until I found the story behind this photo...

Here I would like to share with you photos that have been winning this award since 1995. I will provide a short description of each photograph so that you can find yourself right there where that very moment was captured.

Here are they...

1995

Awarded to the Associated Press Staff for its portfolio of photographs chronicling the horror and devastation in Rwanda. A child tries to awaken his mother from a diseased sleep in a refugee camp in Zaire.

1996

Awarded to Stephanie Welsh, a freelancer for her shocking sequence of photos, published by Newhouse News Service, of a female circumcision rite in Kenya.

1997 

Awarded to Alexander Zemlianichenko ofAssociated Press for his photograph of Russian President Boris Yeltsin dancing at a rock concert during his campaign for re-election.

1998

Awarded to Clarence Williams of Los Angeles Times for his powerful images documenting the plight of young children with parents addicted to alcohol and drugs.

Theodora Triggs, 34, cradles daughter Tamika, 3, after shooting heroin.

1999

Awarded to the Associated Press Photo Staff for its striking collection of photographs of the key players and events stemming from President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky and the ensuing impeachment hearings.

2000

Awarded to Carol Guzy, Michael Williamson and Lucian Perkins of The Washington Post for their intimate and poignant images depicting the plight of the Kosovo refugees. Agim Shala, 2, is passed through a barbed wire fence as members of his family are reunited at a refugee camp in Kukes, Albania.

Refugees hold a funeral for a baby born on the journey from Kosovo, who lived only a few weeks and was buried in a part of the cemetery set aside for Kosovo Albanians.

                2001

Awarded to Matt Rainey of The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J., for his emotional photographs that illustrate the care and recovery of two students critically burned in a dormitory fire at Seton Hall University. Shawn Simons, sees his burned hand for the first time while receiving his daily bath in "the tank." Although he was burned on his hands and face, Shawn's injuries were considered less life-threatening than his roommate's.

The fire at Boland Hall killed three freshmen and injured 58 others including four critically. One of the doors to the third floor still bears evidence of a student's struggle to escape the blaze.

2002

Awarded to The New York Times Staff for its photographs chronicling the pain and the perseverance of people enduring protracted conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

While relatives watched, Afghan children ride an improvised carousel that had been made from artillery shell casings in Mazar-i-Sharif, the northern city that fell to anti-Taliban forces in November 2001. Rides cost 5,000 Afghanis, or about 10 cents.

 2003

Awarded to Don Bartletti of Los Angeles Times for his memorable portrayal of how undocumented Central American youths, often facing deadly danger, travel north to the United States.

In the vast migration that is changing the US, a Honduran boy rides a freight through Mexico. Each year thousands of undocumented Central Americans stow away for 1,500 miles on the tops and sides of trains. Some are parents desperate to escape poverty. Many are children in search of a parent who left them behind long ago. Only the brave and the lucky reach their goal.

      2004

Awarded to Carolyn Cole of Los Angeles Times for her cohesive, behind-the-scenes look at the effects of civil war in Liberia, with special attention to innocent citizens caught in the conflict.

WAR UNDERFOOT: Bullet casings carpet a street in Monrovia, at the heart of the battlefield between government and rebel soldiers. Businesses closed for weeks as the battle raged.

TOO LATE: A soldier cries for his comrade who died in his arms after a frontline offensive on Aug. 2nd, as government soldiers fought to take back territory lost to rebel forces.

  2005

Awarded to Deanne Fitzmaurice of San Francisco Chronicle for her sensitive photo essay on an Oakland hospital's effort to mend an Iraqi boy nearly killed by an explosion.

Though usually upbeat, Saleh was sensitive about his appearance. One afternoon, when he saw other children staring at him, Saleh became angry and upset. Nurses sought to soothe him by taping a felt tip pen to this arm so he could draw pictures. Saleh drew an airplane dropping bombs.

        2006

Awarded to Todd Heisler of Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, for his haunting, behind-the-scenes look at funerals for Colorado Marines who return from Iraq in caskets.

Marine Major Steve Beck prepares for the final inspection of 2nd Lt. James J. Cathey's body, only days after notifying Cathey's wife of the Marine's death in Iraq. The knock at the door begins a ritual steeped in tradition more than two centuries old; a tradition based on the same tenet: "Never leave a Marine behind." When the wars began in Afghanistan and Iraq, Maj. Steve Beck expected to find himself overseas, in the heat of battle. He never thought he would be the one arranging funerals for his fallen comrades.

         2007

Awarded to Renée C. Byer of The Sacramento Beefor her intimate portrayal of a single mother and her young son as he loses his battle with cancer.

Racing barefooted after kicking off her flip-flops, Cyndie pushes her son Derek Madsen, 10, up and down hallways in the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento on June 21, 2005, successfully distracting him during the dreaded wait before his bone marrow extraction. Doctors want to determine whether he is eligible for a blood stem cell transplant, his best hope for beating neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer, which was diagnosed in November 2004.

2008

Awarded to Preston Gannaway of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor for her intimate chronicle of a family coping with a parent's terminal illness.

 The moment when she passes away...

2009

to Damon Winter of The New York Timesfor his memorable array of pictures deftly capturing multiple facets of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

2010

Awarded to Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post for his intimate portrait of a teenager who joins the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq, poignantly searching for meaning and manhood.

2011

Awarded to Barbara Davidson of the Los Angeles Times for her intimate story of innocent victims trapped in the city’s crossfire of deadly gang violence. Ten-year-old Erica Miranda was shot three times in her back, knee and hip while playing basketball outside her house in Compton.

2012

Awarded to Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post, for his compassionate chronicle of an honorably discharged veteran, home from Iraq and struggling with a severe case of post-traumatic stress, images that enable viewers to better grasp a national issue.

In today's community of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, one in five suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression. Brian Scott Ostrom is one of them. After serving four years as a reconnaissance marine and deploying twice to Iraq, Scott, now 27, returned home to the U.S. with a severe case of PTSD. "The most important part of my life already happened. The most devastating. The chance to come home in a box. Nothing is ever going to compare to what I've done, so I'm struggling to be at peace with that," Scott said. He attributes his PTSD to his second deployment to Iraq, where he served seven months in Fallujah with the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion. "It was the most brutal time of my life," he said. "I didn't realize it because I was living it. It was a part of me." Since his discharge, Scott has struggled with daily life, from finding and keeping employment to maintaining healthy relationships. But most of all, he's struggled to overcome his brutal and haunting memories of Iraq. Nearly five years later, Scott remains conflicted by the war. Though he is proud of his service and cares greatly for his fellow Marines, he still carries guilt for things he did and didn't do fighting a war he no longer believes in.

***I do not own the photos and some of descriptive materials