The winning image was shot in January 2008 while covering the Kenyan post-election violence. Using a Nikon D2Xs and a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8. After spending all day in the displaced camps getting average images with not ideal light, a storm started to move in late and the light started to get interesting. With the fading light, I knew I only had an hour or two to capture the sense of place of the IDP site that I’d been looking for all day and still had to juggle shooting with interviewing and getting good captions for my editors. Eventually it started to rain and several hundred people started to move under an overhang. Despite the circumstances of their situation and the uncertainty of more violence, the mood was surprisingly light. I spent the last hour sitting among the people on a series of wooden bleachers taking a long series of shots with this same tight composition. This one was framed the best and to me showed the layers of the scene and felt that it really drew the viewer in.

Click here to see the results page.

Make sure to click the professional page not the amateur page.

Here are a few shots from that same day. Clearly, the winning shot makes the location distinguishable from any other place. The other shots are pretty straightforward and do not offer as much to the viewer. The image at the bottom published as well.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Africa, Pages & Pixels, Photojournalism, refugees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.