A picture of a “found” situation with strong human interest, or a fresh view of an everyday scene.
First Place
Katherine Frey, The Washington Post
Virtual learning: Aryanna Manning, 14, an eighth grader at East Coweta Middle School follows her math class online at home in the living room, Monday, March 08, 2021 in Newnan, GA. Since the pandemic began, she says she has become a germaphobe; when she went back to in-school learning, she was too stressed. But, she has struggled with online learning which she is currently attempting full time.
Second Place
Katherine Frey, The Washington Post
ICU: Through glass windows Anthony Church says goodbye to his daughter, Hannah Church, who is recovering from covid-19 at Johnston Memorial Hospital’s ICU while Critical Care Nurse Emily Boucher, who cared for her watches, Wednesday June 16, 2021 in Abingdon, VA. For the nurses in the Appalachian highlands who risked their lives during the pandemic, most feel as if they fought in a war no one acknowledges, including Boucher.
Third Place
Salwan Georges, The Washington Post
Untitled: Anwar Kamal Nusair, 11, check her phone inside her home which was heavily damaged by airstrikes in the last May war in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, Sunday, August 29, 2021. In a year of conflict and covid, ordinary life in Gaza continues amid the rubble. The Gaza Strip is packed dense with life, and with trauma. Children play games beside bombed-out buildings. Wedding parties parade along the sewage-polluted shore. Amid sky-high poverty and unemployment, people find ways to reuse, recycle and reuse again. Families gather for funerals and evenings despite fuel and electricity shortages. People have learned to live with the coronavirus, while the overshadowing prospect of another conflict between Hamas and Israel never fully recedes. Some 2 million Palestinians live in the small, crowded coastal enclave, under an Israeli and Egyptian-led blockade in place since 2007, when the extremist group Hamas seized power.
Award of Excellence
Brendan Smialowski, Agence France-Presse
Untitled: Runners race past an ice cream truck on the National Mall despite heightened security concerns over possible protests or violence March 3, 2021, in Washington, DC.
Award of Excellence
Astrid Riecken, Freelance for The Washington Post
A Rose: Residents of the Southern Towers, a large apartment complex in Alexandria's West End, gather outside their apartments in Alexandria, VA, July 19, 2021, to talk about the threat of upcoming evictions. The Southern Towers are home to a large community of East African immigrants, many of them airport service workers and Uber drivers who were hit especially hard by Covid-19. The five-tower complex changed ownership during the pandemic, and its new owner has filed more than 500 eviction proceedings against tenants, who are increasingly worried about what might happen when the eviction moratorium lifts at the end of July.
Award of Excellence
Carolyn Kaster, Associated Press
Frog: A wood frog looks out from the clover in East Waterford, Pa., on June 6, 2021.
Award of Excellence
Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters
Untitled: Erick Jordan carrying a rifle explains his son Daemeon, 9, gun safety and how to patrol, after the verdict in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S., November 19, 2021.