Hi Grant,
You are correct to say there is a News Photo category. This NNA category was the first category the organization established in 1949 and it still exists today. In 1950 they added the Feature category and according to their website, those were the only two categories for photographers to enter for 38 years until they added the Sports category in 1988. Calgary hosted the XV Olympic Winter games in 1988 so I can see why they felt the need to add it. Pretty tough to ignore.
And so it went for another 20 years, just three categories for photographers to enter: News, Feature and Sports.
In 2007, NPAC had their first NPOY awards. These awards were created by Canadian photojournalists and fairly represent the contribution to the newspaper industry by them. There are over a dozen categories that ensure a level playing field between images allowing photographers to compete fairly. General News photos don’t compete against Spot News photos and Sports Feature photos don’t compete against Sport Action photos. There have been categories added like Social Issues and two Multimedia ones and entry rules massaged so the competition is even more representative of the work we do.
In 2008, and in what I can only believe was in response to the NPOY Awards program, the NNAs added the News Feature Photo category. The only differences one could distinguish between the News Photo and News Feature categories was one was for spot news photography.
John Lehmann won the first News Feature category that year and last year (2016) it was won by Jason Franson. This year the News Feature Photo category has been eliminated and all news photos are being judged in one News Photo category again and General News photos are being judged against Spot News photos.
The NNAs did introduced a new category this year named: Photo Portfolio/Essay . Which I assume lumps photo stories in with photographer's entire bodies of work also know as portfolios. Bit of a multi picture category, I guess. All three nominees in this new category are NPAC members; Martin Tremblay, Ian Willms and Todd Korol.
So as I stated in my original post in this thread, the number of categories for photographers to enter into the NNAs is stuck at four.
It’s no secret I’m not a fan of the NNA’s approach to recognizing Canadian photojournalists. And I think if you look at the imbalance in their program you can understand why. In fact, it was the impetus for us to create the NPOY.
But what I can’t understand is the continued imbalance in their program. And how many newspapers in Canada continue to support the NNAs and ignore the NPOYs. Not all newspaper do this but too many do.
Plus, it has always dismayed me how many Canadian photographers never bother to enter their work into the NPOY over the years. Or even become members of NPAC. The NPOY is an exclusive and extraordinary opportunity for Canadian photojournalists they don’t have anywhere else. The program has evolved, made changes when the membership spoke out and has awarded well over $100,000 in prizes, recognized countless photographers and produced an annual book showcasing all the nominated images over the past decade.
For the past three years the NPOY has participated in the Capture and CONTACT Photography festivals in Vancouver and Toronto respectively, holding two-week long public exhibitions in each city of all the images that are nominated. The NPOY has gone to Quebec and participated in their Zoom Photo festival, as well.
All this was done with probably less than one tenth of the financial support the NNAs get from newspapers. How is that possible? We can only thank our sponsors from the photography industry who continually support us. Without them the NPOY would die.
It’s been an interesting 11 years and I’m proud of what the NPOY has accomplished. I hope it can continue and I certainly hope Canadian photojournalists participate and support the program. Nobody else is recognizing them more broadly and publicly than NPAC.
Ric.
Topic: National Newspaper Awards Finalists (Read 2363 times)