Carolyn Cole, Alex Majoli Win BOP's Top Awards

Carolyn Cole of The Los Angeles Times and Alex Majoli of Magnum and Newsweek have won Newspaper and Magazine Photographers of the Year awards in the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism (BOP) contest.

The win is the latest in a series of accolades for Cole, who earlier this month took top newspaper honors in the POYi competition. Her winning BOP portfolio included images from the wars in Iraq and Liberia which the judges called "heartwrenching" and "breathtaking." (Cole is also rumored to be a Pulitzer finalist.) Majoli, a contract photographer for Newsweek, won for his Iraq portfolio as well as two stories he shot in China for the magazine's special issue on Asia.

Chris Curry of the Peoria Journal Star won the Cliff Edom's New America Award, which recognizes storytelling of rural and ethnically diverse people, for his project on an Amish community as it adjusts to modern society.

The contest, launched three years when NPPA split with the Missouri School of Journalism over the POY contest, drew 30,500 entries.

BOP judges included Seattle Times assistant managing editor Heidi de Laubenfels, Fortune photo editor Michele McNally, Rocky Mountain News DOP Janet Reeves, freelance photojournalist Clarence Williams and Gary Hershorn, Reuters' DOP for North America.

McNally said she was impressed by Los Angeles Times photographer Brian Vander Brug's series on homicide in Los Angeles County, The New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks's story from Iraq and Getty staffer Chris Hondros's photo of a jubilant soldier in Liberia.

Hershorn praised the work of several photographers working for smaller newspapers. "You don't have to work at the Dallas Morning News, Boston Globe or New York Times to turn in a great story."

For instance, the work of Mark Zaleski of The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., practically "jumped off the screen," Hershorn says. Zaleski covered the fires in Southern California and contributed two essays, one on an 11-year-old boy struggling with obesity and another on the gruesome yet mundane work of the Riverside County coroner's office.

BOP contest rules turned out to be a point or minor controversy. "The way we [set the rules] made it appear that only newspapers could enter the newspaper category," explains Washington Post photo director Joe Elbert, who drew up the BOP rules.

As a result, many wire service photos were entered into the magazine category. "I noticed immediately there were twice as many entries in the magazine category [compared to past years]," Elbert says.

Hershorn complained that a number of wire service pictures had been entered in the wrong categories. "It seems that people are trying the hedge their bets by entering in categories that have fewer entries," Hershorn says. "I do hope the wires can be pushed into the newspaper side of the contest [next year]." After he complained, Hershorn recused himself from judging the magazine news category. Elbert says that because the majority of wire service pictures end up in newspapers, it makes sense to confine them to the newspaper categories. He says the rules will be "tightened up" next year.

View the winning images here.