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. 

Pete Souza

Pete Souza is a best-selling author, speaker and freelance photographer based in Madison,Wisconsin. He is also Professor Emeritus of Visual Communication at Ohio University. Forall eight years of the Obama administration, Souza was the Chief Official White House Photographer and the Director of the White House photo office. In 2021, Souza was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.His book,Obama: An Intimate Portrait, was published by Little, Brown & Company in 2017,and debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. It is one of the best-selling photography books of all time.Souza's most recent photography book,The West Wing and Beyond: What I Saw Inside the Presidency,was published in September 2022.Souza started his career working for two small newspapers in Kansas. From there, he worked as a staff photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times; an Official Photographer for President Reagan; a freelancer for National Geographic and other publications; the national photographer for the Chicago Tribune based in their Washington bureau; and an assistant professor of photojournalism at Ohio University; before becoming Chief Official White House Photographer for President Obama in 2009.In addition to the national political scene, Souza has covered stories around the world.After 9/11, he was among the first journalists to cover the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan, after crossing the Hindu Kush mountains by horseback in three feet of snow.Also, while at the Tribune, Souza was part of the staff awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for explanatory reporting on the airline industry.

Paul Kitagaki Jr.

Photographer and videographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. has traveled the world covering natural and human-caused disasters, documenting the lives of everyday Iraqis living under Saddam Hussein, Mexico City residents digging out of a deadly earthquake, Asian factory workers laboring for pennies to produce high-end athletic shoes for theU.S. and international athletes competing for gold at nine different Olympic Games. Kitagaki’s work has been honored with dozens of photo awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, and been nominated for Emmys. He’s been published in news outlets worldwide, including National Geographic, Time, Smithsonian Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Stern, People, Mother Jones, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times,the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, as well as in his home paper, The Sacramento Bee.As he was searching through photos at the National Archives in 1984, Kitagaki found a photo taken by famed documentary photographer Dorothea Lange of his grandparents and father preparing to board a bus in Oakland, Calif., enroute to a World War II incarceration camp. Kitagaki was aware that Japanese Americans have been hesitant, sometimes even ashamed; to talk about their experiences in one of America’s darkest hours as political leaders ignored the Constitution to seize the homes and property of U.S. citizens. But he also knew that those stories would be lost forever if he didn’t act.Through slow and painstaking research, Kitagaki, a third-generation Japanese American, has spent the last 15 years locating and winning the trust of the families who lived through the internment camps, documenting their stories of survival and inner strength to overcome injustice, racism, and wartime hysteria. Kitagaki’s work is now a national traveling exhibition, appearing at the Smithsonian and in cities throughout the country. CalledGambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit, it explores the legacy of an enduring spirit as Japanese Americans triumphed over adversity in the WWII incarceration camps.

Gregory Cooper

Gregory Cooper is an assistant professor of photojournalism at Eastern Illinois University in with previous stints at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara and time on Ventura County publications. “Photojournalism has been my professional life for over 20 years, primarily as a daily shooter and then picture editor at newspapers. Since 2003, I have taken a break from the newsroom and focused my efforts on educating the next generation of visual journalists.”

Regina McComb

Regina McCombs is an award-winning multimedia journalist, photo editor and educator. A dedicated story-teller, she has traveled the world teaching and training journalists (and aspiring journalists) how to use strong visuals for news. Currently, she is the Senior Fellow for Visual Communication and Photojournalism at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches multimedia and photojournalism, and coordinates the Northern Exposure visual storytelling workshop. And because she can’t stand not helping tell stories, she is also a senior photojournalism editor with the International Women’s Media Foundation, working on grant-funded projects that bring international stories to U.S. audiences, developing young photojournalists along the way. Previously, she was the Senior Editor for Visual News for Minnesota Public Radio, working with a team to develop photography, video and multimedia. Prior to coming to MPR (and home to Minnesota), she was a faculty member at the Poynter Institute , teaching multimedia, mobile and social media. Before that, she was the senior producer for multimedia at StarTribune.com in Minneapolis-St. Paul, arriving there after 13 years as a television producer and photographer at KARE-TV, the NPPA-winning powerhouse in the Twin Cities. Winner of numerous Best of Photojournalism and Pictures of the Year International awards for multimedia storytelling, as well as Emmys for her video work, she teaches around the country and the world, talking about telling visual stories on the Web and mobile devices, especially with video. For StarTribune.com, she coordinated the multimedia team’s coverage, shot and edited video stories, created audio slideshows, produced major projects and trained staff in creating multimedia. She also taught classes in online journalism and TV news at the University of Minnesota, where she received her master’s degree.

Scott Goldsmith

Scott Goldsmith’s career had a jump start when he won the College Photographer of the year Hearst Competition. After working at the Louisville Courier-Journal for 7 years, he moved to Pittsburgh to start his independent career. Scott has photographed feature stories for a wide variety of magazines including: The National Geographic, LIFE, TIME, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, Politico, Rolling Stone and US News & World Report. His work has taken him to the jungles of Costa Rica, the swamps of Jamaica, the slums of Haiti, caves, deserts, and several rides on Air Force One with the president. He has worked in 49 of the 50 US states and 19 foreign countries. His work has been exhibited in over 35 galleries and his photographs have appeared in over 50 photography books. Goldsmith has won over 100 awards for his work including Addy’s, Communication Arts, Golden Quills, Pictures of the Year and the National Academy of Sciences.