pulitzer prize for feature photography

Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography

1968: Toshio Sakai, United Press International, "for his Vietnam War combat photograph, 'Dreams of Better Times.'“

Photo depicts a scene from a camp of U.S troops in South-Vietnam. The soldier in the foreground slept on a pile sand bags while his comrade in the background was watching guard. The two troops were of the First Away Division and rested after heavy sniper and mortar fire. They were wearing Ponchos to stay dry even though the Moonson was pouring ceaselessly. The poncho was versatile: it also kept away the red ants. Another advantage was that an injured soldier in a poncho was easy to pull away from the action. The two troops were taking this rest at the Landing Zone Rufe about 36 miles northeast of Phuc Vinh. The Moonson was just one of the obstacles to The American troops which they were not used to and which was therefore difficult to handle. With reference to the photograph’s message, the sleeping G.I was perhaps dreaming of a time without rain and without war.

Feature Photography 1968

1969: Moneta Sleet Jr. of Ebony magazine, "for his photograph of Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow and child, taken at Dr. King's funeral.“

It has been just five days since a snipers bullet killed the civil rights leader. Coretta Scott King has discovered that the pool of journalists covering her husband’s funeral does not include a black photographer. She sends word: If Moneta Sleet is not allowed into the church, there will be no photographers.


1970: Dallas Kinney, Palm Beach Post (Florida), "for his portfolio of pictures of Florida migrant workers, 'Migration to Misery.'“

In 1969, photojournalist Dallas Kinney began a two and a half month migration to visually document the men, women and children of migrant farm workers in the US. Kinney was awarded the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for photojournalism, and the first annual “Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Award.This was the first Pulitzer award for a series of photographs.


1972: David Hume Kennerly, United Press International, "for his dramatic photographs of the Vietnam War in 1971.“


1973: Brian Lanker, Topeka Capital-Journal, "for his sequence on child birth, as exemplified by his photograph, 'Moment of Life.'“

Feature Photography – 1973

Brian Lanker was a young, single photographer at the Topeka Capital-Journal, intrigued by the Lamaze method of childbirth. It took him six months to find a Kansas couple willing to be photographed.Jan. 27, 1972: Lanker was in the delivery room with parents-to-be Lynda and Jerry Coburn. “During early labor,” he said, “it was obvious to them that I was there. Later on, you have a bunch of doctors and nurses and I was able to blend in.” But the photographer was “so caught up with the moment and the emotion,” he needed a kind of “sixth sense” to stay focused. “Fortunately, your professionalism and artistry take over and allow you to do the work.”Tiny Jacki Lynn Coburn arrived, and Lanker captured “the incredible moment” — a baby’s first breaths, a father’s look, a mother’s smile.

1974: Slava Veder, Associated Press, "for his picture Burst of Joy, which illustrated the return of an American prisoner of war from captivity in North Vietnam.“


One of those POWs is Col. Robert L Stirm of the U.S. Air Force. Stirm was shot down over Hanoi and badly wounded, his family had waited almost six years not knowing whether they would see him again. A giant C-141 taxis toward the crowd. The men disembark, alert and solemn in new dress uniforms. Stirm is the last man off. Briefly, he addresses the crowd, “Thank you for this enthusiastic reception God bless you and God bless America”.As Stirm finishes speaking, Veder notices: “There was motion. The family had started to run toward him, and that’s what caught my eye.” Veder raises his camera, Stirm sees his children running toward him, Veder clicks the shutter: a burst of joy, captured in one frame. Stirm’s son remembers: “It was just this overwhelming feeling, he finally made it back”.

1977: Robin Hood, Chattanooga News-Free Press, "for his photograph of a disabled veteran and his child at an Armed Forces Day parade.“


By spring 1976 the Vietnam War is over, but the effects are deeply embedded in the lives of millions. Robin Hood went over as an Army information officer but came back as a photographer. Eddie Robinson served in Vietnam, too, but the war took something away from him: his legs.The two veterans cross paths at the Armed Forces Day Parade in Chattanooga, Tenn., on May 15, 1976. Hood is walking along the sidelines, taking pictures for the Chattanooga News-Free Press. “I had just finished photographing a group of small Vietnamese children who had been relocated to Chattanooga as war refugees and were now watching the parade and waving small American flags.”Then Hood sees Robinson, in army fatigues, a rain poncho — and a wheelchair. “The thought occurred to me that here was a man who had made a supreme sacrifice for the freedom of those (Vietnamese) children-” Hood releases the shutter. Robinson wistfully watches the parade and protects a child from the rain.

1978: J. Ross Baughman, Associated Press, "for three photographs from guerrilla areas in Rhodesia.“


Ross Baughman wears a military uniform and carries a rifle. He rides the Rhodesian back country on horseback. But he is not a soldier. He is a photographer for The Associated Press.It is 1977. The white Rhodesian government is under intense pressure from the country’s disenfranchised black majority. Baughman travels with a rugged cavalry unit. Grey’s Scouts. Their mission: to seek out anti-government guerrillas and destroy them.The villagers will not give up the guerrillas. So the scouts resort to torture. “They force them to line up in push-up stance,” Baughman remembers. “They’re holding that position for 45 minutes in the sun. many of them starting to shake violently.”The soldiers warn that the first man who falls will be taken away. “Eventually, the first guy fell. They took him around the back of the building, knocked him out and fired a shot into the air. They continued bringing men to the back of the building. The poor guy on the end started crying and going crazy and he finally broke and started talking. As it turns out. what he was saying wasn’t true, but the scouts were willing to use it as a lead.”Remembers Baughman: “It had all the feeling of an eventual massacre. I was afraid that I might see entire villages murdered.”

1981: Taro Yamasaki, Detroit Free Press, "for his photographs of Jackson State Prison, Michigan.“


1983: James B. Dickman, Dallas Times Herald, "for his telling photographs of life and death in El Salvador.“


1984: Anthony Suau, The Denver Post, "for a series of photographs which depict the tragic effects of starvation in Ethiopia and for a single photograph of a woman at her husband's gravesite on Memorial Day.“


Tom Gralish of The Philadelphia Inquirer for his series of photographs of Philadelphia’s homeless.


Michel duCille of The Miami Herald for photographs portraying the decay and subsequent rehabilitation of a housing project overrun by the drug crack.

Feature photography – (1988)

Manny Crisostomo of Detroit Free Press for his series of photographs. depicting student life at Southwestern High School in Detroit.

Feature Photography – (1989)

David C. Turnley of Detroit Free Press for photographs of the political uprisings in China and Eastern Europe.


William Snyder of The Dallas Morning News for his photographs of ill and orphaned children living in subhuman conditions in Romania.


"Kevin Carter, a free-lance photographer for a picture first published in The New York Times of a starving Sudanese girl who collapsed on her way to a feeding center while a vulture waited nearby.

Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine. the picture depicts a famine stricken child being stalked by a vulture. The child is moving towards a United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.Three months later, and only weeks after being bestowed with the Pulitzer prize, Kevin Carter committed suicide.


A Rwandan child too weak to stand rests his head while waiting for a vaccination. Awarded to the Associated Press Staff for its portfolio of photographs chronicling the horror and devastation in Rwanda.

Feature Photography (1995)

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


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


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.


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.


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. In this picture, sister Bernadette distributes food from in Kukes, Albania. She decided to drive to a refugee camp there because no refugees were coming that day through the Morina border crossing.


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. While Alvaro struggles, Shawn is making a rapid recovery. He gently kisses his girlfriend Tila’s hand as the two visit Alvaro at a family barbeque during the summer. Their relationship survived despite the injuries Shawn suffered in the fire.


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. A young man struggles to keep his eyes open after inhaling opium as a heroin syringe hangs from his friend’s arm underneath a bridge in downtown Quetta, Pakistan, where dozens congregate to inhale or inject a variety of drugs, including opium, marijuana, and heroin. Neither man was coherent enough to identify.


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.

Liberia ConflictAwarded 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.


A government soldier defends a bridge in central Monrovia where a standoff between rebel and government forces held the city under siege.

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.


The mission to save Saleh brought him and his father to Children’s Hospital Oakland, leaving his pregnant mother and two younger sisters behind in Iraq. The explosion had ripped open Saleh’s abdomen, torn off his right hand and most fingers on his left, blown out his left eye and killed his older brother.

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.


As his son’s funeral neared, Jeff Cathey’s tears rarely stopped. He often found comfort in the men who shared his son’s uniform. “Someone asked me what I learned from my son,” he said. “He taught me you need more than one friend.”

Awarded to Renée C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee for 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.

Awarded to Preston Gannaway of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor for her intimate chronicle of a family coping with a parent’s terminal illness. Carolynne St. Pierre pauses to compose herself while recording a video for her children.


Her sister Sara Matters and cousin Anna Stoessinger comfort her. Doctors had just told Carolynne she would only survive for a number of weeks or months.

Awarded to Damon Winter of The New York Times for his memorable array of pictures deftly capturing multiple facets of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Senator Obama drenched, during a rally at Widener University in Chester, Pa. (Damon Winter, The New York Times – 2008)


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. Ian Fisher cradles his injured elbow during his processing into the Army in Ft. Benning, Ga. On June 20, 2007. Though he later had a change of heart after speaking with a commander, he saw a possibility to escape his enlistment only two days in.


From his first day in fatigues through his days driving a Humvee in Iraq, military life often didn’t mesh with his expectations. Sometimes the structure of the Army and the demands of training for war clashed with the freedom he shared with his outside friends. (Craig F. Walker, Denver Post – 2009)

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 the back, knee and hip while playing basketball outside her home in Compton.


A young man had walked up to the crowded street corner and started firing a handgun in what police believe was a gang assault. A 17-year-old relative and a 45-year-old family friend, both men, were also shot three times and survived.

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.


Enia - The Very Best of Enya

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pulitzer prize for feature photography

Art & Photos

feature photography

brian lanker

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american troops

vietnam war combat photograph

pulitzer award

pulitzer prize

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