Michael Williamson
Michael S. Williamson was born in 1957 in Washington, D.C. and raised in several foster homes around the U.S. before settling with a permanent foster in Northern California at age 12. He joined The Washington Post in 1993. He previously worked at The Sacramento Bee (1975-1991) and taught at Western Kentucky University (1991-1993). His first newspaper job was at the Pinole Progress (which later became part of The West County Times) where he did reporting and photography.
Williamson has covered a variety of global events in the last 30 years, including the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, the Philippine revolution, strife in the Middle East, the Gulf War, and conflicts in Africa and the Balkans.
In 1994 he won the Crystal Eagle Award, a national award that recognizes photography that has had a documented effect on society. He won the award for a 15-year project on homelessness in America. His work on the homeless yielded three books, including, And Their Children After Them (co-authored with Dale Maharidge) which won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction book in 1990. Another book, published in 1985 (also with Maharidge) Journey to Nowhere, the Saga of the New Underclass, was optioned by HBO Pictures. Two more recent book collaborations with Maharidge produced, Homeland, which was released in the 2004 in the U.S. and Italy in 2005, and Denison, Iowa, which was published by The Free Press also in 2005. Another book project, The Lincoln Highway (with Michael Wallis) was released by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2007. His latest book, Old Dogs are the Best Dogs was published by Simon and Schuster in October, 2008.
The National Press Photographers Association named Williamson "Newspaper Photographer of the Year" in 1995. In 2000 he shared the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography for coverage of the conflict in Yugoslavia and was named "White House News Photographer's Association Photographer of the Year.”
He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with his daughters Sophia and Valerie.
