2007 – 2008 Photojournalism Winners
The three photo judges met at the Hearst Foundation’s San Francisco office for the semi-final portfolio review on Saturday, May 31st. Out of 160 entries in the three photo competitions throughout the year, twelve semi-finalists qualified for this round of judging. After much deliberation, the judges selected six finalists to attend the Championship. These finalists were then immediately notified and flown to San Francisco the next day, where they competed in “the shoot-off.”
Canon and Nikon participated in the competition once again by offering state of the art equipment for the shooters. Sunday night, shortly after arriving in San Francisco, the finalists met the judges in the Hearst hospitality suite for orientation and assignments. This year’s assignments were: a photo story about “going green in San Francisco,” a single image representing the Democratic presidential primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and a “wildcard” image. The finalists had two days to shoot and edit their images before their Wednesday morning deadline. The winners were announced at the Thursday night awards ceremony.
The first through third place winners were awarded scholarships of $5,000, $4,000, and $3,000 respectively and are featured below. The three finalists who earned $1,500 scholarship awards are: Ikuru Kuwajima from University of Missouri, Jessica Pons from San Francisco State University, and John Tully from University of Missouri. Two additional awards of $1,000 were given to Justin Maxon for Best Single Photo and Jessica Pons for Best Picture Story, selected from their semi-final portfolios.
