Alexia Main

Dedicated to helping professional and student photographers produce photographs
that promote world peace and cultural understanding.

The 2001 Alexia Competition Winners

Jan Dago
$15,000 professional grant winner.
Read his proposal.
View his portfolio.

Jan Dago, 36, started out as an advertising photographer, then became a newspaper photographer for five years. After that he taught photography at the Danish school of journalism for a year. He is now a full-time freelance photographer. He has photographed in more than 20 countries.

There were 75 applications for the professional grant. While there is only one grant given, the judges also gave special recognition to Peter Sibbald of Ontario, Canada, for his project on documenting the efforts of the Innu people of the Quebec-Labrador Peninsula to rebuild and strengthen their culture which has declined over the last few decades.

The final four included Gauri Gill and Laurie Swope. Gill, a graduate student in the MFA program at Stanford, worked as a photojournalist for several years in India. Swope is a Boston Herald photographer.

The judging was done at Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY, on Feb. 17 by Michele McNally, picture editor of Fortune Magazine; Robert E. Gilka, former director of photography at National Geographic; and Joe Traver, Reuters contract photographer. Joe has also been a photographer and picture editor for Sports Illustrated, Deputy Photo Chief for the last two Olympics, and president of the National Press Photographers Association.

Read his proposal.
View his portfolio.

Tom Mason
First place student scholarship winner.
Read his proposal.
View his portfolio.

For the second time in the Alexia Competition's 11 years, a Syracuse University student has won first place in the student scholarship and grant competition. Tom Mason, a senior at Syracuse University won the $9,000 scholarship to study photojournalism at the Syracuse University London Centre and a $1,000 grant to produce his picture story.

Second place: Ramon Jimenez Cuen, from Oaxaca, Mexico, and now a student in the photojournalism program at the ICP. The second place award is a $6,000 scholarship and grant of $500. Read his proposal.

Awards of special recognition:
J.D. Perkins from the London (England) College of Printing. Read his proposal.

Stephanie Keith, a student in the Documentary Photography Program at the ICP. Read her proposal.

Nicole Tarver of Syracuse University. Read her proposal.

Each Special Recognition award provides a scholarship of $1,600 and a grant of $500.

Each student winner receives a scholarship toward tuition, fees and living expenses to study photojournalism in London in the fall semester at the Syracuse University London Centre and a cash grant to help produce their proposed story.