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WNPA Member Pic: Kristyna Wentz-Graff

Kristyna Wentz-Graff record audio during a memorial for Ricky Nelson,
a Marine Cpl., 23, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. The
memorial was organized by students at Christian Life School, in
Kenosha, from where Ricky and his widow Kristen both graduated.

Photo by Kevin Poirier/Kenosha News

Clip standings following March clips

Here are the up-to-date clip standings following the return of the March 2008 clips.

Corey Wilson, Green Bay Press Gazette, 255
Evan Siegle, Green Bay Press Gazette, 225
Dan Powers, Appleton Post Crescent, 220
Terry Mayer, The Week, 215
Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 190
Tom Loucks, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, 175
Scott Anderson, Racine Journal Times, 165
Mark Hertzberg, Racine Journal Times, 150
H. Marc Larson, Green Bay Press Gazette, 130
Doug Alft, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, 120
Susan Pischke, Herald Times Reporter, 90
Kristyna Wentz-Graff, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 80
Kevin Poirier, Kenosha News, 70
Dan Lassiter, The Janesville Gazette, 50
Eric Young, Herlad Times Reporter, 40
Michelle Stocker, The Capital Times, 40
Cory Dellenbach, Shawano Leader, 40
Jaslyn Gilbert, Herald Times Reporter, 30
Gregory Shaver, Racine Journal Times, 30

March 2008 clips are in

The March clips have just returned. Thank you to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for judging the March 2008 clips.

SPOT NEWS
1. Scott Anderson — Racine Journal Times = Dump truck tips over.
2. Doug Alft — Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune = Power outage at school.
3. Corey Wilson — Green Bay Press Gazette = Motorcycle accident.

PORTRAIT
1. Evan Siegle — Green Bay Press Gazette = Man who sold gun to shooter.
2. Dan Powers — Appleton Post Crescent = Wrestler of the Year
3. Scott Anderson — Racine Journal Times = Fan listens as Favre announces retirement.
Honorable mention: Scott Anderson — Racine Journal Times = Wrestler of Year working on the farm.

FEATURE
1. Corey Wilson — Green Bay Press Gazette = Shaved head for charity.
2. Scott Anderson — Racine Journal Times = Son helps day snow plow.
3. Scott Anderson — Racine Journal Times = Recognizing National Pi Day.

GENERAL NEWS
1. Mark Hertzberg — Racine Journal Times = Wife of killed police officer cries in court
2. Cory Dellenbach — Shawano Leader = Brett Favre pauses to cry.
3. Dan Powers — Appleton Post Crescent = Jury convicts stepfather of killing boy reaction.
Honorable mention: Evan Siegle — Green Bay Press Gazette = After school tutoring program.

SPORTS
1. Mark Hoffman — Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel = Favre carrying Jennings off the field.
2. Michelle Stocker — The Capital Times = Brian Butch celebrates Big Ten Title.
3. Dan Powers — Appleton Post Crescent = High school hockey.
Honorable mention: Mark Hoffman — Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel = Dunking at the Bradley Center.
Honorable mention: Terry Mayer — The Week = State boys basketball reaction.

FEATURE MULTIPLE
1. Tom Loucks — Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune = Teacher leaving on maternity leave.
2. Tom Loucks — Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune = Boxing.
3. Mark Hoffman — Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel = Tough as ice sled hockey team.

Illustration (quarterly)
1. Dan Lassiter — The Janesville Gazette = Fraternalist visible in community.

There you have it. Great job again to all and good luck with the April clips!

New website to be unveiled

A major redesign for WNPAonline.com is due to come online in the next few weeks, showcasing a number of new features and drastically changing the presentation of information online.

Improvements will be made in the way photo galleries are presented online, incorporating Lightbox, an innovative new gallery browser.

The membership page has been updated, and will allow users to add custom information and e-mail other users directly from WNPAonline.com

There will still be polls, story comments and all the other features, but perhaps the biggest reorganization will be the dissolution of blog.WNPAonline.com. All of the data from the blog will be merged into WNPAonline, creating one comprehensive source of information, including vastly better archives. Once the new site is up, brows our archives, you may find a few things that disappeared over the years.

Looking forward, the new site offers many potential upgrades including better handling of multimedia formats, online registration and an easier to use FTP function, including many others beyond the horizon.

due: May/June 2008

Here is a history of WNPAonline.com web sites:

2006-2008:

2005-2006

2004 + earlier

Capital Times staffers say farewell

Here’s a link to the farewell story for The Capital Times and there transition to being a web only publication:

http://www.madison.com/tct/zzztest/282931

There is also a sidebar to photographers Hank Koshollek (WNPA Dumke award winner), Dave Sandell & Rick Rygh who took buyouts.

Milwaukee Press Club photojournalism awards announced

The Milwaukee Press Club announced winners of 78th annual Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism contest.

The Milwaukee Press Club today announced the winners of its 78th annual Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism competition, with the winners to be honored at the club’s April 26th Gridiron and awards banquet at the InterContinental Hotel Milwaukee.

View all of the winners (other categories, media) here.

Photojournalism Category PJ-1
Best Still Photograph
1st
Anne Baesemann
Feingold lead photo
Milwaukee Magazine

2nd
Craig Schreiner
Origami Rose
Wisconsin State Journal

Photojournalism Category PJ-3
Best Photo Essay or Series
1st
Craig Schreiner
A Death Well Planned
Wisconsin State Journal

Photojournalism Category PJ-4
Best News Photograph
1st
Mark Hertzberg
Fire Rescue
The Journal Times

Photojournalism Category PJ-5
Best Feature Photograph
1st
Dan Reiland
Amish Boat
Leader-Telegram

2nd
John Maniaci
Old Fashioned Fun
Wisconsin State Journal

Photojournalism Category PJ-6
Best Sports Action Photograph
1st
John Maniaci
Game Winning Score
Wisconsin State Journal

2nd
Best Sports Action Photograph
Corey Wilson
Helmet Removal Service
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Photojournalism: Best Still Photograph
1st Place
Christopher Guess
Virginia Tech vigil
The Daily Cardinal

WNPA site accidentally down early Friday

Whoops! The WNPA site was down for most of Friday, April 18, 2008, after a web hosting account mix-up that involved switching the site from one web server to another. Problem solved.
In the next couple of months, a major redesign of WNPAonline will hit the web. The redesign will hope to streamline the way we present news, photos and photo galleries online, as well as clean up a number of time-consuming technical issues that will enable the webmaster to sleep more at night.

Wisconsin State Journal photographer Steve Apps wins big in Pro Football Hall of Fame contest

Wisconsin State Journal photographer Steve Apps is the winner of the Dave Boss Award of Excellence for his entry in the 40th Annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Photo Contest. His photo, titled “First Down,” was deemed the Photograph of the Year for the 2007 NFL Season.

The color feature image captures Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre signaling for a first down while shrouded with snow in the third quarter of the Packers’ 42-20 NFC Divisional Playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks on January 12, 2008 at Lambeau Field.

The prestigious contest, sponsored by Canon, U.S.A., Inc., the official camera of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is open to professional photographers ordinarily on assignment to cover National Football League games. Photos taken during the 2007 NFL season, that included Super Bowl XLII and the 2008 Pro Bowl, were eligible.

Apps’ entry was the first place winner in the feature category while Donald Miralle, Jr. of Getty Images placed first in the action category. Miralle’s image titled “Hand Picked,” depicts San Diego Chargers cornerback Antonio Cromartie fully extended in mid-air while intercepting a Peyton Manning pass during a 23-31 victory over the Indianapolis Colts on November 11, 2007 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.

Judging was conducted on April 4 by a panel of prominent photo editors and photographers. The judges included Mark Christian photo editor, Sporting News; Stella Kramer, Pulitzer Prize winning photo editor; John H. Reid, III, team photographer, Cleveland Browns; Brad Smith, sports picture editor, The New York Times; and Kevin Terrell, freelance photographer/photo editor.

Apps will be officially honored at the Enshrinees GameDay Roundtable, part of the 2008 Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Festival, on August 3, 2008. The multi-day enshrinement celebration is highlighted by the induction of the Class of 2008, Fred Dean, Darrell Green, Art Monk, Emmitt Thomas, Andre Tippett, and Gary Zimmerman, on August 2, followed by the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game the next day. This year’s game showcases the Indianapolis Colts and Washington Redskins.

WNPA members at John McCain visit

Sen. John McCain made a stop on the campaign trail this week, making an appearance at South Milwaukee’s Bucyrus International, Inc. to tout his economic credentials during two hour-long discussion panels with business leaders.

The two-hour event turned into three with breaks, introductions and the like. Add another 45 minutes of media staging time and the result is a lot of media with some extra time on their hands.

Here are a few images from the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign appearance.

Darren Hauck gets a better view of McCain by climbing onto the deck of a railroad car parked near the discussion table.

Andy Manis follows the action right behind McCain in the fray as the candidate meets with attendees following a portion of the panel discussion.

Jack Orton of the Journal Sentinel takes a long view of the McCain-led discussion through his telephoto lens.

WIAA seeks clarification on earlier article on WNPAonline

On April 13, WNPAonline posted an article summarizing WIAA’s stance on photo reprint sales rights now that a similar situation in Illinois has been decided through the Illinois state senate.

Todd C. Clark, director of communications for the WIAA, read the article on WNPAonline and felt opinions expressed in a number of cited media works contained within the article were misleading or did not articulate WIAA’s position accurately.

I asked him if he was interested in preparing a statement that could straighten out any misleading information presented in the previous article as well as clearly spell out WIAA’s current stance as it pertains to state high school playoff events and photo reprint sales rights. Here is Communication Director Todd C. Clark’s response in his own words:

“Currently, the WIAA position is that photographs taken with the authoritative issuance of the media credential by news gathering outlets are strictly for editorial, non-commercial use only, except with written consent of the WIAA.

We choose not to deny photo credentials to newspapers or consider any other punitive action while we continue to have dialog. I know I respect the jobs and commitment photographers give to high school sports, and feel it would be more productive to continue dialog in the meantime. However, as we’ve stated, we reserve the right to our position as clearly indicated in our policies. We believe our policy is clearly stated about the commercial use of photos from the WIAA Tournament Series events. We would appreciate newspapers/photographers consideration in prescribing to ethics in working within these guidelines.”

(We are) hoping to provide a compromise with newspapers. I worked to get our official photographer to agree to allow newspapers the opportunity to sell State photos that actually appear in print and was working toward a similar type of limited sale for photos accompanying stories on the Website before we were, for a lack of a better term, “smeared” with editorials based on inaccurate assertions and misinformation.

The “without written consent of the WIAA” portion of the rule allows the opportunity for the WIAA to issue written consent for the sale of pre-State Tournaments (regionals and sectionals) with a licensure fee. The licensure fee is $100 for pre-State Tournaments (regional and sectional), which allows the licensee the opportunity to sell as many photos as they wish from regionals and sectionals.

Because our exclusive arrangement with VIP. Only VIP has the license to sell (or resell as the case may be) images from the State Tournaments.

The WIAA will host its annual Media Day, to be held July 17, 2008, Clark said various media rights issues as well as the current photo reprint sales rights issue are likely discussion topics. Clark is encouraging the WNPA to send its own representative to the annual media day. For more information, e-mail Todd C. Clark at tclark@wiaawi.org