The Contest Designed by Photojournalists for Photojournalists

Compete with the very best in still and television photojournalism, in picture editing, and Web editing. Now in its eighth year, the Best of Photojournalism (BOP) is the world's leading digital photojournalism contest.

BOP is a project of the National Press Photographers Association.

1st Place, Enterprise Picture Story (smaller markets)

Ramin Rahimian/Freelance

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“Last Mission/Last Hour”

In the early morning of October 20, 2006, six days before his 21st birthday, the Humvee Iraqi translator Diyar al-Bayati was riding in during a routine patrol came under attack by a roadside bomb and an ambush. On his last mission and his last hour as a translator before moving to Kuwait for a safer translating job, Diyar lost both of his legs and had his right arm horribly maimed. On April 11, 2008, after a year and half of recovery and over 70 surgeries in Baghdad and Amman, Jordan, Diyar arrived in Salt Lake City as a refugee. Now, he spends his days waking up late (if he sleeps at all), barely eating, running errands, being taken around to different medical appointments, watching movies, and using the Internet to talk with friends and family. Despite Diyar’s intense drive, intelligence, self-reliance, and positive attitude about his new life, he can never go back home and his life will never be normal.

A towel cools Diyar’s forehead as he experiences a very high fever as he recovers after a long surgery on his right arm at the University of Utah Hospital. What was supposed to only be a one night of recovery, turned into a very long stay. He had to be transferred to the main hospital from the Orthopedic Center when he had complications resulting from an infection. The surgery had spread rare bacteria common to the Middle East called Klebsiella that had been dormant in his right arm.

Judging for the Best of Photojournalism is sponsored this year by:

On-site Still Photography judging was powered by Aperture.