PDI photo wins SND award

The Inquirer’s July 24, 2016, front page photo

The Inquirer’s front page photograph on July 24, 2016, showing a young woman cradling the lifeless body of her partner won for Inquirer photographer Raffy Lerma the silver medal for Photography-Breaking News from the prestigious Society for News Design (SND).

The suspected drug user was killed by unknown vigilantes in the government’s unrelenting war on drugs, which Lerma had been documenting.

“The 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,” the SND judges said in a comment.

“The photograph is perfectly composed, the lighting is gorgeous, and the emotion is potent,” it added.

The SND is an international organization for news media professionals and visual communicators.

The Best of News Design Creative Competition is held annually and invites entries from all magazines and general circulation newspapers—daily or nondaily, broadsheet or tabloid, traditional or alternative—published anywhere in the world, as well as syndicates and cooperatives providing material used in newspapers.

Judging was held at St. Petersburg Coliseum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

This year’s contest brought in over 6,500 entries from over 200 newspapers around the world.

Lerma’s silver medal is an award granted for work that rises above excellence representing “an elevated level of execution, originality of concept, or high-end work done with a high degree of difficulty,” the SND said.

It is the second recognition the Inquirer has received from SND. In its first try in 2002, it had the distinction of being the first in the country to enter the prestigious winner’s circle with its award of excellence for Inquirer’s Lifestyle page, “A pasta primer” (Tastes, Aug. 22, 2002) in the category Feature Design-Food Page.

The SND individual golden yellow certificates were addressed to Lifestyle editor Chelo Banal-Formoso, design director Lynett Villariba and page designer Marlone Rubio.