NPPA Best of Photojournalism 2007

More winners announced...

http://bop.nppa.org/2007/web_sites/winners/

I was surprised this morning when I found out that I got second place in the Photojournalism Blog category.

http://bop.nppa.org/2007/web_sites/winners/PJB/87038/87038.html

The images of the guy that took first price are amazing.

Check out also some of the photo essays and still images that are awarded

http://bop.nppa.org/2007/still_photography/winners/

Enjoy!
Luca

Congrats...

Hi Luca,

Congratulations to you
Great photo, the pixel alibi of yours...

Cheers,

Luca,

This is wonderful news! The picture is great in B&W.

Could you post it here and describe how you came to take it and what was on your mind. Did you think of it being in B&W or was this something that you came to you later? How did you proceed to B&W and did you not make a satisfactory Color version.

This is a most important question since some say B&W should be composed at the time of the shot. I think that's not at all necessary, however, I'm lucky enough not to be taking exams in film school!

I'm interested in this to better understand how we create art.

Again, kudos!

Asher

The gallery that was awarded can be seen here

http://www.lucaprasso.com/pixelalibi/nppa.html

it's a small collection of the shots made in 2006.
It contains images from Morocco, Brazil, San Francisco.

Morocco was stange. There were plenty of photographers around. The people were aware of this and many shots lokked like shots seen in books and on the web from other travellers. A strange feeling...
Some of the colors were so interesting I forced myself keeping them in color.

Brazil is too full of colors but what I saw was BW. The joy and desperation were equally without colors.

The San Francisco image of the father and son (shot at the Chinese parade last year) reminds me of pictures from the 40-50s. Maybe are just the tall buildings out of focus in the back and the empty street.

I think my brain works better in BW but I don't see in BW as much I see expressions, composition, details and spaces.
Sometime I see in my brain the picture I want to take a fraction of a second before raising the camera. These are usually my best shots... when I plan them too much I fail...

The first thing I do with the RAW image is to convert it in BW. In some rare case I go back to the color version.
To me the BW adds many more layers to the image.
It seems to me that the BW version allows the viever to create the colors if they need to be there.

I suspect many books have been written about this...
I just follow my instincts and my eyes...

Not sure if I answered your questions here...

Thanks,
Luca