Carol Guzy wins NSC 2009 Photographer of the Year

Carol Guzy of the Washington Post has been named the NSC 2009 Photographer of the Year during judging of the annual photo contest today in McLean Virginia. Stephen Katz of the Virginian-Pilot placed second, Katie Falkenberg of the Washington Times placed third and Nikki Kahn of the Washington Post received an honorable mention. Full results of the contest are available here.

BIRTH & DEATH "Only when the fetus almost dead or is dead and they can't deliver then they think of sending the patient to the hospital." -Dr. S.K. Sidique, senior gynecologist Women lay on threadbare gurneys in a ward infested with mosquitoes and the stench of urine and death. Bintu Kamara, 28 years old, waits in the labor ward of Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown. She survived an emergency C-section but her baby was stillborn. They sometimes must wait for the family to buy surgical gloves before surgery can begin. Photo by Carol Guzy.

With few beds and even fewer cribs, an infant waits on the floor to be seen by a doctor. Photo by Stephen Katz

PASSING THE DAY Passing the hot summer day, females ranging in age spend time outside on the porch and yard of their home in an old sugarcane village in the Dominican Republic. Photo by Katie Falkenberg

Jyotsna Patadia, 15, walks a pot of tea out to her parents and uncle on the salt pans of Western India. "It's easier to be a boy," said Jyotsna, who was forced to drop out of school at 10 to help her parents. "They get to go to school." It is a familiar story in much of the developing world, and in India, where half the women older than 15 are illiterate, twice the rate for men, and millions of poor girls are pulled out of school to help at home. Photo by Nikki Kahn.