I am pleased to announce our judges for the 2009 INPA POY contest. As a reminder, the judges presentations will be Friday Feb. 19th beginning at 6:30 p.m., and judging will be Saturday Feb. 20th, starting at 9 a.m.. Both are being held at the IU Journalism school in Bloomington, Ind. Without further delay, our judges…

Jay Janner

Jay Janner, 40, has been a staff photographer at the Austin American-Statesman since 2003. He is a two-time NPPA Region 8 Photographer of the Year and a three-time Cox Newspapers Photographer of the Year. He has won awards from Pictures of the Year International, NPPA Best of Photojournalism and the National Headliner Award. In addition, he has been named Photojournalist of the Year by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors and the Headliners Foundation of Texas. Previously he was a staff photographer at the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University. Jay Janner Photography

Sarah Hoskins

Sarah Hoskins is a documentary photographer based in the Chicago area.  Her work is in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian Institution, The Library of Congress and the City of Chicago.

Hoskins has been published in national and international publications, including  Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Doubletruck, Enjeux Les Echos (France), Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal, New Scientist, Newsweek, National Geographic Traveler, Open Society Institute Annual Report, Rides, Focus (Germany), Fortune, NZZ Folio (Switzerland), BBC Television and Public Television.

In 2009 she received funding for her Homeplace project from The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Alice Rosenwald Flexible Fund for Rosenwald Schools. Her work was recently renewed for the third time at The Museum Of Contemporary Photography’s Midwest Photographers project in Chicago. She was awarded two Honorable Mentions from the International Photography Awards in August 2009. Her Homeplace project in the Deeper Perspective category and Painting The Eiffel Tower in the Historic Architecture category.Her work was selected for Photography Now, 100 portfolios an international survey of photographers sponsored by Eastman Kodak. Her documentary photography projects have     been featured in American Photography Annual 19, Ameriican Legacy Magazine, Foto8, Photo District News and The Digital Journalist. She is the recipient of several fellowships and grants most recently for her long term project The Homeplace: Photographs from Historic  African-American Hamlets in Kentucky, which she is currently working on.

Hoskins is also an educator. She was a guest lecturer in 2007 and 2004 at the prestigious Women In Photography Workshops at Empire State College in New York City. She has introduced documentary photography to teens and adults who have never had the opportunity to express themselves with a camera before. She is on the Illinois Arts Council Arts In-Education Roster to teach documentary photography in the state of Illinois, she has received two Illinois Arts Council Short-Term Residency grants to teach photography to homeless men, women, and children. Sarah Hoskins Photography

Josh Meltzer

After spending 15 years working as a staff photographer and multimedia field reporter and producer, Josh Meltzer began teaching in 2009 as a Photojournalist-in-Residence at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY where he teaches photojournalism and multimedia storytelling.

While working at The Roanoke Times and roanoke.com, Josh developed an interest in using audio to tell stories with his pictures, and produced his first audio slideshow in 1999.  Throughout his 9 years there, covering the community of southwestern Virginia, Josh produced over 100 audio slideshows and later dozens of video stories.

In 2006 he was named Photojournalist of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Best of Photojournalism competition for papers under a circulation of 115,000 for his portfolio.  More recently his portfolios, stories, audio slideshows and videos have received recognition from the Northern Short Course, Southern Short Course, Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, Best of Photojournalism contests, and Society of Newspaper Design.

In 2009, a long-term project on aging and caregivers, Age of Uncertainty, was awarded the first place documentary prize by the Pictures of the Year International.

In 2008 Josh received a Fulbright Grant from the U.S. State Department to live and work in Guadalajara, México. There he produced stories documenting the migration of indigenous families from rural to urban regions within México.  In addition, he led a year-long program, Listen to My Pictures, which taught photography to 19 street children, culminating in a large gallery exhibition of 50 of their images.

Josh has lectured with the NPPA’s Flying Short Course, judged and spoke at the state photojournalism associations of Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina and the Minnesota, lectured to the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, and spoke at his alma mater, Carleton College.  Josh was on the faculty of the NPPA Multimedia Immersion Workshop and Western Kentucky University’s Mountain Workshop.  Most recently he has been one of the organizers of the Truth With A Camera Workshops, held in Guadalajara in 2009 and Quito, Ecuador in 2010. Josh Meltzer Photography