First Place, Photographer of the Year 2009 – Ramin Rahimian
-
- Outside the Democratic National Convention, members of Iraq War Veterans Against the War line up and raise their arms in an emotional farewell and thanks directed to a crowd who had been marching and protesting alongside them all day in Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday, August 27, 2008. After a long day of marching for miles to the convention site, the Pepsi Center, protesters finally got the Obama Campaign to agree to pass on a letter from the Iraq War Veterans Against the War to Barack Obama.
-
- Gracie, daughter of newspaper photographer David Joles, poses with her father’s gas mask on the day before the start of the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Sunday, August 31, 2008. Violence and protests broke out during the week of the convention. The police were criticized by the press and the public for taking inappropriate and harsh actions against protestors and members of the media. Press freedom organizations have identified at least 42 journalists who were arrested, many of who were abused and injured by police, covering protests during the convention. Eleven of those arrested were photographers. All charges against members of the media were later dismissed.
-
- Demonstrators march the perimeter of Temple Square to protest The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ support of California’s Prop. 8 which passed and eliminated legal gay marriages in California in Salt Lake City, Utah, Friday, November 7, 2008.
-
- Racers compete during the Utah Cyclocross State Championships at the Weber County Fairground in Ogden, Utah, on Saturday, November 22, 2008.
-
- Jodee Blanco consoles 7th-grader Emma Metos, 12, after her presentation on bullying before hundreds of middle school students from local Salt Lake City Catholic schools in the gym of St. Vincent de Paul School in Salt Lake CIty, Utah, on Thursday, September 18, 2008. Jodee Blanco is an adult survivor of bullying and an author of two books on bullying.
-
- Miss Rodeo Utah contestant Jamie Udell takes part in the 2008 Miss Rodeo Utah fashion show at Peery’s Egyptian Theater in Ogden, Utah, on Wednesday, July 23, 2008.
-
- A man prays as fellow demonstrators protest outside the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday, September 4, 2008. Violence and protests broke out during the week of the convention. The police were criticized by the press and the public for taking inappropriate and harsh actions against protestors and members of the media. Press freedom organizations have identified at least 42 journalists who were arrested, many of who were abused and injured by police, covering protests during the convention. Eleven of those arrested were photographers. All charges against members of the media were later dismissed by the city of St. Paul.
-
- Rebecca Giles sits with her one-year-old nephew, Marquis, outside her family trailer on a cornfield in the small Mississippi Delta town of Midnight on Monday, March 17, 2008. The Mississippi Delta is one of the poorest regions of Mississippi, one of the poorest and economically struggling states in the United States. Rebecca shares the small trailer in Midnight with four other adults and six children in her family. The family used to live on a farmhouse in the same location, but in the fall of 2007, it burned down. The owner of the land gave the patriarch of the household a trailer so he could continue plowing the fields for him.
-
- Children have a water gun fight in the new park and playground in the small gas boomtown of Wamsutter, Wyoming, on Wednesday, September 17, 2008. Town officials and residents had gathered earlier for a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new park that was largely funded by the oil and gas company British Petroleum. Before the opening of the park, the children of Wamsutter had very few options to pass the time. Over the past eight years, gas companies have flocked to the vast deposits of natural gas in the desert surrounding Wamsutter, Wyoming. Today, this small, dusty town, situated amidst a stark landscape of sagebrush and parched earth, is booming. The roughnecks and townspeople work tirelessly, struggling to build a good life and community for their families. Yet, with the city’s history of booms and busts, for many residents the realization of a permanent community has remained elusive. But, slowly there have been signs Ð like the opening of the park Ð that community unity, if not economic prosperity, is on the way for Wamsutter.
-
- Jim Hughes, 50, of Oklahoma is photographed in his tiny, modest trailer in the small gas boomtown of Wamsutter, Wyoming, on Friday, February 29, 2008. He lives off of 650 dollars a month from Social Security. In the late 90s, when he was hopping trains through Arizona, he was badly beaten, almost to death, by a gang of criminals. He had to have life-saving brain surgery. Now, as both Jim and his sister, Karla, say, he’s “not stupid, just slow.” He is a very giving man who feels like sometimes people tend to take advantage of him. He has two daughters whom he tries to visit whenever he can. He does a lot of freelance highway accident towing and odd jobs around town to get by. He feels like something has been robbed from his life because of his injury but he refuses to give up in. He spends most of his time with Blackjack, his dog.
-
- “Winter & Care” When she was a baby, Winter Burpee, now 10, was shaken by her father. Suffering from Shaken Baby Syndrome, she cannot speak or walk and has had several brain and intestine surgeries. Her mother, Care, left her husband, remarried, and now raises Winter and her five other children. Care brushes Winter’s hair on Winter’s bed at their home in Syracuse, Utah on Thursday, June 26, 2008.
-
- Winter’s brother Carter, 7, looks at a picture of himself and his brother outside Winter’s bedroom.
-
- Winter spends most of her time throughout the day lying in bed.
-
- Care holds Winter as her daughter Reagan, 4, looks on. “The thing is; out of all my babies, she cried the least. She was such a good baby.” – Care
-
- Care washes Winter during her morning shower. The father, who is no longer with Care, admitted he had shaken Winter but he says only to make her breathe again. He has never admitted that it was his shaking that made her stop breathing.
-
- One of Winter’s many nurses, Juliana Klas of Ivy Lane Pediatrics, carries Winter from the shower to her bed.
-
- Care cleans out Winter’s ear after her morning shower.
-
- One of Winter’s nurses, Juliana Klas of Ivy Lane Pediatrics, watches as Care dries Winter after her morning shower.
-
- Care, left, and nurse Juliana Klas negotiate Winter down a ramp in the garage to take her outside. Care recently had back surgery to have three vertebrae in her back fused because of the constant lifting of Winter and now needs nurses to come and help out.
-
- Juliana Klas, Winter’s nurse for the day, uses her hand to block Winter’s eyes from the sun outside the Burpee home.
-
- Care pushes Chloe, 16 months, left, and nurse Juliana Klas pushes Winter as they both help Reagan, 4, center, during a walk around the neighborhood.
-
- Care plays with Winter’s hair before leaving her so Winter could take a nap.
-
- “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 DiyarÕs 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.
-
- Diyar looks at his old prosthetic legs he received while in the hospital in Amman, Jordan during a session with prosthetics at Fit Well, a prosthetic specialty center in Salt Lake City. Diyar’s hope is to, as soon as possible, receive the most advanced and lightest prosthetic legs through his insurer, AIG. Specialists have told him he needs to strengthen his maimed right arm with further surgeries before receiving the legs.
-
- Diyar leaves his apartment to be driven by his caseworker Debi Clark to downtown Salt Lake City for a radio interview with a local NPR affiliate. Only a few weeks after arriving in Utah, local and national press began showing interest in DiyarÕs story and Diyar welcomed it.
-
- Diyar smokes from a hookah for the first time since arriving in Utah at a Lebanese restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City. Mostly done settling in, swimming through all the red tape, and finished with most work on his right arm, Diyar was in high spirits. He was eager to move on and possibly move to Maryland to be with his girlfriend. His plan was to live with her and her brother and later marry her. Things did not work out with their relationship. His plans changed to focusing on getting his green card, visiting his family in Syria or United Arab Emirates, and eventually, once a citizen, bringing them over to the U.S.
-
- Debi, Diyar’s caseworker, helps him leave the bathroom right before he went in for a major four hour surgery on his right arm at the University of Utah Orthopedic Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Anesthesiologists Jeff Swenson and Karl Hurst-Wicker, right, wait for Diyar to come out so they can prepare him to go into the surgery. Diyar was late for the surgery and had to be rushed from the airport after visiting his girlfriend in Baltimore, Maryland.
-
- Diyar shouts in pain as nurses lift his arm to check how it is healing as he recovers from his right arm surgery at the University of Utah Hospital. Diyar had been promised a short stay after the surgery, but the surgery had spread rare bacteria common to the Middle East called Klebsiella that had been dormant in his right arm. Diyar ended up spending about two weeks in the hospital.
-
- For the third time in two days, Diyar leaves the Aspen Ridge rehab center and takes an ambulance to a hospital, complaining of severe chest pain and difficulty breathing. In a bare patient intake room at the University of Utah Hospital, Diyar waits to see a doctor. After waiting for a long time, doctors meet him to tell him that he is experiencing complications from his new antibiotic medication. The previous day, at a different hospital, Diyar refused to go back to the rehab center and angrily demanded that he be taken to his apartment against orders by his doctor.
-
- Diyar waits on a couch in his living room for a freelance videographer for MTV to interview him for a pre-election package he was working on concerning the state of medical care in the U.S. Diyar has a bed, but he prefers to sleep out in the living room where he spends all of his time when he is home.
-
- At a hair salon in Salt Lake City, Elizabeth Trujillo gives Diyar a haircut.
-
- Diyar visits the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City.
-
- Diyar receives a used electronic wheelchair from Bob Sorbonne of Cottonwood Heights, Utah. Bob read about Diyar in an article published in the Salt Lake Tribune. He decided to donate the wheelchair, an extra one that his handicapped sister no longer needed. BobÕs own son has served two tours of duty in Iraq.
-
- Diyar looks up at the sky as he waits to be helped out of the car after going grocery shopping.
