Aphrodite Tsairis made these remarks at the 15th annual Alexia Competition at Syracuse University after the judging on February 26, 2005.

A giant wave rising up 30-50 feet in seconds from the calm of a sun-drenched tropical ocean is hard for the mind to grasp. The speed of the event, the enormity of the devastation and above all, the massive loss of life have been etched into our memories.

We are all accustomed to the nightly news with video reporting the current events of the day. Those of us over 60 still consider it a requirement to actually read a newspaper each day. More and more people are getting their news from the internet.

Because of this shift in how we get the news, worries abound about what is happening to still photography. Some have asked, "Is photojournalism dead?" Each year, the space for photos continues to shrink. And one looks to the golden era of photojournalism from the 1930s to the 1960s with nostalgia.

I noticed something that startled me during the tsunami coverage. After a few days of normal video coverage, CNN, as well as others, started to include still photographs in their coverage. I noticed that those images moved me the most. Those were the images that stayed with me. Those were the images I recalled to a friend as I discussed the tragedy. The video tape was long forgotten. The miles of footage became just background. The stills leapt out at me in stark contrast.

The New York Times ran an article on January 9, 2005, that was entitled, "No Picture Tells the Truth. The Best Do Better Than That" by Daniel Okrent. He talked about the "surpassing power of pictures [which] enables them to become the permanent markers of enormous events." Just this last week, NPR radio mentioned the 60th anniversary of the marines planting the flag at Iwo Jima. And who can forget little JFK Jr. saluting his father's passing coffin. "Each is the universal symbol for a historical moment," Okrent said.

Written stories get headlines, they can contain nuances of interpretation and explanation. But I loved it when Okrent said, "Pictures seize the microphone. If they're good they don't let go." A front page story usually gets a single picture and that often becomes the icon that stands for the event.

Photo editors make difficult choices each day. Okrent writes about controversy that erupted over the Times-selected tsunami photographs that appeared on the front page. Too exploitive; unduly graphic; too big; came the criticisms. But Michelle McNally, a former Alexia Competition judge, a friend of the Foundation and now Director of Photography at the Times, countered with, "I believe the paper has the obligation "to bear witness" at moments like this. Wouldn't you want us to show pictures of Auschwitz if the gates were opened in our time?"

This brings me to another incredible example of the power of photography. Lizette Alvarez reported on ghetto photographer, Henryk Ross who had the largest collection of images of ghetto life during the Holocaust by a single photographer. As the Germans prepared in 1944 to round up most of the ghetto residents for deportation to Auschwitz, Mr. Ross buried his 3,000 negatives. After the war Mr. Ross retrieved his negatives and upon his death, his son donated them to the Archive of Modern Conflict in London. However, the collection had never been seen until recently when a group of Holocaust survivors, with magnifying glasses in hand, sat down at the museum to the view them. After many years of suppressing memories of what they endured, they were again confronted by the horrors they left behind, they again felt the stinging loss of their loved ones and they were evermore grateful to have survived.

Mrs. Aronson, 77, picked out her first boyfriend and then saw herself sitting next to him. Others found it too painful an exercise. But in the end it was the miracle of the camera in the hands of a dedicated photographer that preserved the time for history.

I read somewhere a while ago that it takes brains to use a camera, but it takes heart to tell a story through a photograph.

A camera is nothing more than a fancy box with a hole meant for collecting light. The person behind the camera, however, makes the magic happen. Photographs can be categorized: good, better and best. A good photo will stop you in your tracks and grab your attention. A better one tells you a story. But the best photos must have spirit. Those with spirit evoke emotions or move us in a way that cannot be shaken from the mind. The Times selected a tsunami photo for its front page on December 28. A grieving mother crouched beside the lifeless bodies of tiny children, and 3 pairs of feet extending from beneath a white sheet in an upper corner, suggested the presence beyond the frame of row upon awful row of the tsunami's toll.

It is the goal of the Alexia Foundation to constantly look for those images that can tell a story with spirit.