by Renee C. Byer of the Sacramento Bee

Two years ago, Cyndie French learned that her son, Derek was diagnosed with cancer, a disease that over 1 million people are diagnosed with every year. Despite the painful journey, Derek and Cyndie open their lives for a year to share their story, as cancer slowly steals his youth from him.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Feature Photography 2007. The story also won the Picture of the Year (POY) World Understanding award. An emotional journey of a mother and a son whose life is being cut short by cancer. It is a hard story that raises questions on how best to dedicate resources in cancer research to perhaps provide more support to the immediacy of the economical and emotional burden of families dealing with serious health situations.

Stories like this are often lost in the crowded media, but these are the stories that speak about us, these are the stories that are experienced by you and me, in real life. This is not about others.

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by John Dugdale (Self Portrait)

In my last year of high school, I had a wonderful photography teacher who used to leave the back door open to the school so I could go to the darkroom. I'd decided after graduation that I'd go to the Culinary Institute of America to be a chef, but this teacher said, "Why don't you go to art school instead?" I answered, "But I can't draw." And he said, "Don't be silly. What about photography!" That was it.-John Dugdale

The last issue of American Photo has a very interesting article about fine art photographer John Dale. Working with alternative processes and large format photography he has a successful career in fine art photography despite his progressive and significant loss of sight. Past are the times of highly paid commercial work by big clients like Ralph Lauren and Marta Stewart, when AIDS took a hit on his health and ultimately his sight, but not in his vision and strength.

My inner voice was saying, you didn't do what you meant to.

A really inspirational history, John Dugdale conveys his inner vision and an exquisite sensitivity of beauty into emotional photographs.

The little bit of sight I have now might last for another year, or it might last for another five. But most of the time I have a big smile on my face, because I'm experiencing elevated levels of clarity.- John Dugdale

His poor eyesight requires that his assistant Dan Levin, with good vision actually take the shot since he is legally blind. Even with his limited eye sight his images have turned fuller of feeling and soul.

Even so I have explained the concept to Dan so exactly that it is my image, and it is this, my art, which has saved my life.-John Dugdale

It is difficult to find good web galleries of John's work, but you can see some images at the American Photo article as well as some galleries like Robert Klein. The Digital Journalist has several videos online with the artist. John Dugdale has published two books of his work, Lengthening Shadows Before Nightfalls and Life's Evening Hour.

by John Dugdale

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From the series "In transition" © Per-Anders Pettersson

I first learned about Per-Anders Pettersson when he won an award of excellence at the 2006 Picture of the Year competition in the category of Science/Natural History with the image of a chimpanzee being washed. I love that image.

© Per-Anders Pettersson

"A CHIMPANZEE BEING WASHED" Crew members wash Dola, a chimpanzee, that they bought for US$ 25, while waiting for their boat to leave the Kisangani port for the capital Kinshasa on March 4, 2006 in Kisangani, in Congo, DRC. Dola died a few days later from an unknown disease. Many animals are taken to Kinshasa and sold as pets or for the meat. The Congo River is a lifeline for millions of people, who depend on it for transport and trade. POY64.

Per-Anders is indeed a well known photographer from Sweden who has spent most of the last 10 years in Africa and in particular South Africa. His work documenting the transition to democracy of South Africa is impressive. I love the density of the images (see leading image), the contrast and color saturation, the emotion of the people, the gestures. You will find an slide show of this work at his website "In transition".

It was a magic time to cover Nelson Mandela's election campaign and to document people's happiness. It was finally a hope for change after decades of Apartheid.- Per-Anders Pettersson

I like to link to a recent report of his work covering the humanitarian crisis in the Congo. He covered the Katanga Province in December 2005 to document one of worst humanitarian crises since World War 2. The Congo Republic, a country where four million have died since 1996, mostly from preventable diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea, and malnutrition.

Thousands of refugees gathered at a school in Dubie, Katanga in December 2005.

© Per-Anders Pettersson-Getty Images

One of the top ten underreported stories in 2006 as selected by Time magazine. The Congo is still home to one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Congo is plagued by malnutrition, and diseases that kill 1,200 people a day. As the UNICEF points out, that is the equivalent of suffering a 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami every six months.

I'm drawn to places like South Africa, like Cambodia, that have suffered terribly and yet survive. I want to be part of people’s daily lives during their most difficult time. I learn so much from these people.

The Katanga crisis was the forgotten crisis. There were very few journalists covering it. They went to other places like Kivu and Goma, and near the Ugandan border, but not Katanga. I was one of the first to cover it. There is still fighting there and still many refugees.-Per-Anders Pettersson

Even in times of crisis, people gather to share a moment of intimacy, a moment to decorate their nails sharing the dye between them. I hope the beautiful colors of Africa, so well captured by Per-Anders Pettersson, will signal a future of hope. As I always like to suggest, if you like to help, visit CARE or Mercy Corps (or any other reputable NGO) and make a donation.

© Per-Anders Pettersson-Getty Images

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by Oded Balilty (AP)

The 2007 Pulitzer Prize for photography was awarded two days ago to Oded Balilty of the Associated Press for Breaking News Photography.

Since the moment I saw this image months ago, it has remained in my mind. The unbalanced power between the security forces and the the woman is a striking message of the conflict between political and social priorities. A lone Jewish woman defying Israeli security forces during the evacuation of the West Bank settlement of Amona on February 1, 2006. The woman, in green, pushes against a barricade in one of the clashes that erupted as soldiers were on their way to demolish the settlement.

Other winners of the pulitzer price include Renee C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee for Feature Photography for "A Mother's Journey," a portrayal of a single mother and her young son as he loses his battle with cancer and photojournalist Rick Loomis of the Los Angeles Times was a member of the team who won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for their five-part series "Altered Oceans" which last summer examined the conditions of the world's oceans.

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© Kari Collins

The "New Documentary Award" from the Julia Dean Photo Workshops for a long term project in 2006 was fiven to Kari Collins, for her moving multi-media presentation on the care-givers of an Alzheimer's patient. Her presentation is available here.

Florence Abel, 89, of Owebsboro, Ky., has spent the majority of her life caring for others. Suffering the final stages of Alzheimer's, Florence now depends greatly on her family and caregivers for comfort and support. This story documents her final journey; one filled with love, compassion, and strength. While her ability to care has become full circle, her strength in the final stages of her life is greatly supported by the compassion of those she once cared for, as well as the people her kind spirit has touched in the process.

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by Kelly Shimoda

I look for what no one else is noticing, the strange and beautiful things people are quickly walking by.-Kelly Shimoda

PDN online has an article about the work of Kelly Shimona (see her portfolio here). I love her boldness to find beauty in details of ordinary life, too ordinary for many to miss, but holding the intrinsic beauty of what is familiar and constitutes our life. As a founder of photo agency Veras Images you will find more of her work at the website.

I like to go where I’m not supposed to be and look inside places and people. I like being forced into a confined space and discovering the hidden details. I suppose it’s my style of curiosity that is unique and that I hope comes out in my photos. I am curious about the quotidian, am compulsively inquisitive about people, and I have a tendency to ask too many questions about the intimate details of people’s lives. I think this translates into my photography through what I choose to focus on and perhaps the manner in which I shoot.- Kelly Shimoda

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The frontlines of contemporary wars are right where people live. -James Nachtwey

James Nachtwey was awarded with the TED price 2007. You can see his TED talk online or download the videopodcast here. Like all other winners he gave a talk about his work and made a wish:

Help me to gain access to a story that needs to be told, and develop a new, digital way to show these photos to the world.-James Nachtwey

His work was also recognized recently (2006) with the 12th Heinz award for Arts and Humanities. James Nachtwey was recognized for transcending photojournalism with emotion-laden artistic images. You can see a video interview with Nachtwey at the Heinz award site.

As a photojournalist James Nachtwey has created art, not art that offers a new technique, but art that powerfully exposes man's inhumanity to man. - Teresa Heinz

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© Bruce Davidson (Magnum)

One of my favorites storytellers ... the legendary Bruce Davidson ... and one of my favorites series of his work, Subway (published in a book). You have to see an exhibition to really appreciate the beauty of his images. Listen to Bruce describe the project here at the New York Times. You can see some of his projects here (note that the web reproduction of the subway series is quite poor).

I wanted to transform the subway from its dark, degrading and impersonal reality into the images that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality and vitality of the individual souls that ride it each day.

I don't consider myself a documentary photographer. Documentary photographer suggests you just stand back, that you're not in the picture, you're just recording. I am in the picture, believe me. I am in the picture but I am not the picture- Bruce Davidson

When he made his extraordinary subway series, spending five years in the 1980s snapping the riders on every inch of New York's subway system, he found himself using color, which he had always thought gratuitous, to capture the movement, the life.

If I am looking for a story at all, it is in my relationship to the subject - the story that tells me, rather than that I tell. Taking photographs, taking candid photographs, means that the photographer is an invisible man. Whereas there is still a feeling that in having a photograph taken there is loss of face: something of the soul is gone.

Let's say that Eugene Smith was my photographic father and Cartier-Bresson, my mother. Bresson was generous in spirit and took life as it came — he never imposed himself in his images. ... Smith worked more like a film director- Bruce Davidson

More about Bruce Davidson (read below) …

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© Carlos Serrao

Carlos Serrao's images covering the Soccer World cup in 2006 for Nike (see under special portfolios at his website) were striking, but what I like the most about his work is the variety of images in his portfolio. You will find at his website a combination of styles that have nothing to do with each other but blend beautiful in a remarkable piece of work.

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