The BPPA Pictures of the Year contest will be judged virtually Feb. 22-24, 2021!

We are pleased to introduce our judges for the contest:

Ruth Fremson / The New York Times (website, instagram): A native New Yorker, Ruth Fremson never expected to go into photojournalism until her senior year of college. After studying graphic design at Syracuse University for the majority of her undergraduate career, expecting to pursue a career in the visual arts, she serendipitously took a photography course taught by Robert Gilka at Syracuse's London center. In less than three weeks she was convinced that she had found a new path in life. After Syracuse, Ruth attended the graduate program at Ohio University, landing an internship at The Washington Times during the summer of 1988. This led to her first staff position at the Washington Times where she worked from 1989-1994 when she joined the staff of The Associated Press. First based in Charlotte, NC photographing sports and memorably the reinstating of President Aristide in Haiti by the American armed forces and the end of the civil war in Bosnia. In 1996 she was transferred back to Washington, D.C. to cover the White House and spent the next two and a half years documenting the Clinton administration with short stints in London for Princess Diana's funeral, the Pope's historic visit to Cuba and the Atlanta Olympics. Ruth was part of the AP's Pulitzer Prize winning team in 1999 for their coverage of the Clinton impeachment. In 2000 Ruth joined The New York Times hired her in 2000 and bringing her back to the New York. to work at her 'hometown' newspaper. Since then, her assignments have ranged from the presidential campaigns (McCain (2000), Gore, and Dean), the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and its aftermath in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Salt Lake City Olympics, the war in Iraq, more trips to the middle east where she continued to cover the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In 2012 she worked on the groundbreaking 'Snowfall' project which earned writer John Branch a Pulitzer prize. She spent a year documenting the life of a homeless child, Dasani, in 2013, which helped change New York City's policy towards the homeless. In addition to being part of both teams to win the spot news and feature photography Pulitzer prizes for The New York Times in 2001, she has earned awards from the White House News Photographers' Association, the National Press Photographers' Association and the New York Press Photographers' Association. Her work has been exhibited in several shows and can be found in numerous books.

Bebeto Matthews / AP: Bebeto Matthews has been with the AP for nearly 20 years and is based in New York. He has covered presidential conventions, volcanoes, the Olympics, Princess Diana's funeral, the 9/11 aftermath and professional sports in the West Indies. His long-term project "Sophia," about a child suffering from a rare bone disorder, won a top multimedia award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Richard Tsong-Taatarii / Minneapolis Star Tribune (website, instagram): Through his documentary photography work, Richard Tsong-Taatarii brings attention to the joys and tribulations of Minnesotans as a staff photographer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Richard also enjoys covering communities within our larger society that escape the attention of the mainstream media. His traveling monograph “Lakota Resistance: The Bison, Horse, and the River” is a five-year documentary on the legacy of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Reservation and his extensive coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests on the Standing Rock Reservation. In 2018, he was named NPPA Best of Photojournalism large market photographer of the year for his coverage of the Rohingya exodus, end of the Standing Rock protests, and Black Lives Movement. He was also awarded a World Press Photo award in general news for his picture of Philando Castile’s best friend, John Thompson, mourning his lives, by highlighting the long-term impact of the Black Lives movement. Richard has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and M.A. in Visual Communication from Ohio University.