Lead Judge:  Dave LaBelle

Throughout his 50-year career, Dave LaBelle has been a photographer, editor, teacher, author and lecturer. 

LaBelle has worked for 20 newspapers and magazines in nine states, including the Anchorage Times, San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, Ventura County Star-Free Press, The Chanute Tribune, Ogden Standard-Examiner, The Sacramento Bee and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he was assistant managing editor for photography. 

His work has won numerous awards including National Press Photographers Association Region 10 Photographer of the Year three times, runnerup to W. Eugene Smith for the first Nikon World Understanding award in 1974 and runner-up for the NPPA National Photographer of the Year award in 1979.  He was awarded the International Understanding Through Photography award by the Photographic Society of America in 2002. 

LaBelle is also a master teacher whose students have gone on to win more than 10 Pulitzer Prizes.  Shortly after his time as Photographer at the Sacramento Bee, he turned his sights towards teaching as a compassionate storyteller and was a key member of the legendary team who built Western Kentucky University’s renowned Photojournalism program.  NPPA honored him with the Robin F. Garland Award for photojournalism education in 1991.  He also taught at University of Kentucky and was director of Kent State University’s Photojournalism program for many years. 

He is the author of 5 books including The Great Picture Hunt which is widely regarded by many as the cornerstone book for shooting features. 

Lessons in Death and Life is a sensitive, in-depth discussion about photographing grief and delicate issues.  His most recent book Bridges and Angels: The Story of Ruth is his first novel based on the disappearance of his mother in the 1969 Ventura County Floods.

LaBelle has served as judge for Pictures of the Year International, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame Photo Contest among many others. 

Ellen Jaskol 

Up until early 2009, I was a newspaper photographer and photo editor at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver for 17 years, where our photo team won two Pulitzer Prizes, and before that I was at the Los Angeles Times, as staff photographer and photo editor, following three photo internships there in 1983/1984, and then lots of freelancing for them before finally getting hired.  In 2010 and 2011,  I spent some time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, photographing children, teachers, and communities in schools for the Central Asia Institute, co-founded by Greg Mortenson, who wrote the book "Three Cups of Tea."   Currently I have my own photography business, doing mostly corporate work, and I am completely grateful for it.

Rick Loomis

Rick Loomis is a New York area based freelance photojournalist. He has twice been recognized with the Pulitzer Prize - in 2007 (named) and again in 2016 (team).

Before becoming a freelancer, Loomis was a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times for more than 20 years.  He graduated from Western Kentucky University with a BA in photojournalism and a minor in Latin American studies.

Loomis’ work runs the gamut of daily newspaper assignments, but two major themes - the environment and world conflict – have defined his career.  His sensitive eye draws viewers into situations they might not otherwise witness as he strives to capture the humanity of ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances.

 In 2007, Loomis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a year-long project that documented the ills of the planet’s oceans. He took readers into some of the world’s most pristine, isolated underwater environments but also into less attractive locales like human sewage outflows and sea urchin barrens.  In pursuit of other environmentally based stories, he has camped out on the Alaskan tundra, trekked through the jungles of Uganda and rappelled from the cliffs of the rugged Oregon wilderness.

Often tasked to cover physically challenging stories in remote, dangerous places, he was one of the first journalists on the ground covering the war in Afghanistan in 2001. He then committed much of the next decade telling the story of America’s wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Loomis then followed the story home as the U.S.-led wars waned, doing in-depth projects on PTSD, soldier suicide and VA deficiencies.

Loomis covered the revolutionary movements in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and Libya – all in straight succession.  He’s also chronicled other significant global news events including the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.   He also documented religious upheaval in the Central African Republic, the Syrian refugee crisis and the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Ca.

In addition to the Pulitzer, Loomis has been recognized as the National Press Photographers Association’s “Photographer of the Year”, and been awarded the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award (twice), the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award (twice), and the Robert F. Kennedy Award (twice). In 2014, he became the 96th inductee into Western Kentucky University’s Hall of Distinguished Alumni, the highest honor the university can bestow upon an alumnus.

He regularly guest lectures at universities and other institutions and also enjoys teaching and mentoring through workshops and class environments.

Loomis lives in West Orange, New Jersey with his wife, their son Casey, his mom, and the family dog Cinnamon.

Billy Weeks

William (Billy) Weeks has worked as a journalist for over 35 years. His career started with the Chattanooga Times in 1984 as a staff photographer.  In 1995, he became the Photo Team Leader, and in 1999 he was named Director of Photography/Graphics at The Chattanooga Times Free Press and in 2010 he became an independent documentary photographer. Today when he is not teaching photojournalism at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, he is a contract photographer for many news organizations. 

As a photojournalist, Weeks has covered assignments that range from the

World Series to small villages in Central America and Asia. His photographs of poverty in Honduras were selected as an award of Excellence for editorial photography in the Communication Arts Photography Annual. Additionally, he has won the Gordon Parks International Photography award twice and was a finalist ten times. He was awarded the Freedom of Information award from the Associated Press and many other awards for journalism. CNN and Photography District News featured his photographs on baseball in the Dominican Republic and Central America. His work has been exhibited at the New America Foundation in New York City, Hunter Museum of American Art, Art of Photography Show, Slow Exposures, South x Southeast, and several universities. 

Weeks is a lecturer in photojournalism at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and adjunct instructor at Southern Adventists University. He has been a visiting speaker at many Universities and a presenter at several workshops for photojournalism.  He believes that not only should journalists cover their assignment, but should also give something back to their profession. Today he lives in Ringgold, Georgia with his wife, two daughters, and a blind dog named Rosie.