National Magazine Award Nominees Announced

The nominations for the National Magazine Awards have been announced, and there are some interesting photography angles. I was a judge in the Photojournalism category, so I’m going to focus on that category in this post. For a complete list of all the NMA nominations, go here.
       In general, nominations in the three photo categories went to the same magazines that have been honored in the past. Aperture magazine received nominations not only in the Photojournalism category but also in the General Excellence category for magazines with circulations under 100,000. National Geographic was nominated in the Photography category and the Photojournalism category. New York magazine was nominated in both the Photography and Photo Portfolio categories (among many others).  But as I said, the interesting news, from my perspective, was in Photojournalism. I saw a glimpse of the future.

Aperture’s nomination in the Photojournalism category was for a portfolio by Mikhail Subotsky documenting life inside South African prisons. Subotsky is a real talent. (He was also named as one of American Photo’s “Emerging Artists” in 2007, and I’ve been told that he will receive the Young Photographer prize at this year’s International Center of Photography Infinity Awards.)
      Mother Jones magazine received a nomination for a portfolio by Lana Slezic documenting the life of women in Afghanistan. Slezic later published the work in a book called “Forsaken” (powerhouse, $35). American Photo named “Forsaken” one of the 10 best photos books of 2007.
    National Geographic’s June 2007 story about malaria, with photography by John Stanmeyer, was another nominee. The New Yorker was nominated for Martin Schoeller’s images of the Paraha tribe of Brazil. The Virginia Quarterly Review received a nomination for images from Iraq by Chris Hondros. In those pictures, Hondros shot scenes of Baghdad through the window of an armored Humvee (see image above.) But instead of aiming his camera directly out the window, he pulled back and used the window itself as a framing device. The stunning effect underlined the false sense of security provided by the vehicle while depicting the isolation of the American experience in Iraq.
    Of course I cannot reveal the winner, which will be announced on May 1. But isn’t it interesting to note which magazines received nominations and which didn’t? National Geographic is certainly a perennial photojournalistic powerhouse, and Mother Jones has run noteworthy photo stories that bolster its left-leaning politics, but the other nominees are surprising. The Virginia Quarterly Review is a literary journal. The New Yorker once upon a time didn’t even run photos, and it’s still best known for its long articles on politics and culture. Aperture certainly has a sterling photographic pedigree, but it comes from a tradition of fine art, not photojournalism.
    Meanwhile, magazines like Newsweek and Time were not nominated. What does this mean? That photojournalism is now an artistic subset, more at home in galleries than in the shrinking real estate of magazines. (I saw Schoeller’s New Yorker portraits hanging in the HastedHunt Gallery just a few weeks ago.)
    This year’s NMA photojournalism nominations show that this kind of photography still has a home in print. I am happy for that. But there is a fundamental difference seeing such work in the context of art rather than journalism. In the context of art, photojournalism can be powerful and informative. What’s missing is that essentially journalistic element of storytelling. Somehow, for me, that represents a shift in the meaning of photojournalism.
      What’s behind this shift? Magazines don’t have as much space for real photojournalism any more. And audiences seem to prefer pictures of celebrities to pictures of war, poverty, and oppression. Then again, there is so much video and still imagery flying around the Internet that maybe we simply don’t need still images of news in the way we once did. We don’t need the reporting and storytelling that has traditionally defined photojournalism. Rather, we need the reflective, moralistic qualities of art.—David Schonauer