The 91st Annual Awards Dinner In Honor of the President of the United States and the Winners of the Annual Still, Video, and New Media Contests was held at The Ritz-Carlton.
On Tuesday night, AP photographer Charles Dharapak was covering President Obama in Kabul, Afghanistan. On Saturday night he was honored at The White House News Photographers Association, a
91-year-old non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the efforts
of Washington’s professional photojournalists, for Still Photographer of the Year.
Other winners included Andrew Harnik of The Washington Times as Political News Photo of the Year; Video Photographer of the Year Louie Eroglu, Australian Broadcasting Company andVideo Editor of the Year Garrett Hubbard, USA Today.
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| Charlie Dharapak |
Back to Charlie: Not to demean his other work, but Dharapak gained instant and momentous notoriety when he captured First Lady Michelle Obama shopping at Target. How he just happened to be there, no one claims to know.
We figured that since Charlie went to NYU with my daughter, we might have some persuasive powers to get the scoop on how he
got the photos at Target. Nope. Nada....Zip...Zero. He's not talking. "I've only
said that I was able to be there due to good source work," he told us. A Bob Woodward in the making?
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| Credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak |
He did tell CBS News he took pictures of the first lady at the Target on Route 1 in Alexandria, Virginia. The first lady's office confirmed that the pictures showed Mrs. Obama, though it did not immediately respond when asked if it tipped off Dharapak.
Send in your cards and letters if you know his source and we'll try to get the winner a WHNPA goodie bag that included a backpack and a lens wrapper from Tiffen/Domke, an umbrella from NIkon Professional Services, and an HDMI converter from PNY.
