One of 2016\u2019s most talked about photos just bagged an award from the Society for News Design (SND)\u2019s annual Best of News Design Creative Competition.<\/p>\n
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The Philippine Daily Inquirer\u2019s front page photo last July 24, 2016 won silver for Photography-Breaking News at this year\u2019s Best of News Design Creative Competition from SND. The photo, taken by Inquirer photographer Raffy Lerma, shows a woman cradling her partner\u2019s lifeless body, a victim of an apparent vigilante killing brought about by the current administration\u2019s war on drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gripping image stops you immediately and pulls you into studying its details, which make you feel like you are witnessing a tragedy in person: their bare feet, the sidewalk, the signs,\u201d the SND judges said in a comment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe photograph is perfectly composed, the lighting is gorgeous, and the emotion is potent,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
SND is an international organization for news media professionals and visual communicators. Their annual Best of News Design Creative Competition invites entries from all magazines and general circulation newspapers \u2013 daily or non-daily, broadsheet or tabloid, traditional or alternative \u2013 published anywhere in the world, as well as syndicates and cooperative material used in newspapers.<\/p>\n
Judging for this year\u2019s competition happened at St. Petersburg Coliseum in St. Petersburg, Florida.<\/p>\n
According to Inquirer\u2019s article<\/a> on the award, Lerma\u2019s silver medal is granted for work that rises above excellence, representing \u201can elevated level of execution, originality of concept, or high-end work done with a high degree of difficulty.\u201d<\/p>\n Lerma\u2019s photo, however, was met with controversy online. Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has gone on to say that the shot was \u201ctoo dramatic\u201d, comparing the photo to Michaelangelo\u2019s La Pieta<\/em> during his first State of the Nation Address<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n