Denver Post photograher wins NPPA BOP award

A gunman slipped into a midnight premiere of the new Batman movie through an emergency exit, tossed two hissing gas canisters and then methodically, calmly walked up the aisle firing, killing 12 people and wounding 70. It was among the worst mass shootings in American history. Tom Sullivan, center, embraces family members outside Gateway High School where he has been franticly searching for his son, Alex Sullivan, who saw "The Dark Knight Rises," in the movie theater where a gunman opened fire Friday, July 20, 2012, in Aurora, CO. Photograph by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

RJ Sangosti of The Denver Post was named the National Press Photographers Association's Best of Photojournalism 2013 Photojournalist of the Year in the larger market. Sangosti is most known for his photo from the Aurora theatre shooting over the summer.

When Sangosti got the call to learn that he'd won the title, Sangosti said, "It's been a hard year. But this is very flattering and humbling. I look at Tyler [Hicks] and Damon [Winters] work every day. Both of them are amazing."

Sangosti credits the advances the Denver Post has made on their website in terms of photography. "Photography has become really important to the Web site," Sangosti said, "in these days when the print product takes a bow to the Web, and on the Web photographs are really important, maybe it makes the newsroom approach things a little differently now than maybe they did before."

Photos: Iraq then and now

The crossed swords monument at the site of a photo of U.S. soldiers taken by Associated Press photographer Karim Kadim on Nov. 16, 2008. The crossed-sword archways Saddam Hussein commissioned during Iraq's nearly eight-year war with Iran stand defiantly on a little-used parade ground inside the Green Zone, the fortified district that houses the sprawling U.S. Embassy and several government offices. Iraqi officials began tearing down the archways in 2007 but quickly halted those plans and then started restoring the monument two years ago. Photo taken on March 14, 2013. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

The Denver post recently posted a gallery of photos from Iraq from now compared to 10 years ago to see what has changed. Although some photos show the growth and recovery of Iraq after the US has been there for a decade, some places look like they have not changed at all. Personally this is one my favorite things about photography. A journalist could write all about the changes and similarities between a country over a decade. But a photograph, however, shows clearly the exact same place, and there is no question about it.

Iraqi policeman Ahmed Naji stands on the grounds of the Iraqi National Museum at the site of a photograph showing a U.S. Army tank parked outside the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad taken by Associated Press photographer Murad Sezer on Tuesday, May 6, 2003. Tens of thousands of artifacts chronicling some 7,000 years of civilization in Mesopotamia are believed to have been looted from Iraq in the chaos which followed the the US-led invasion in 2003. Despite international efforts to track items down, fewer than half of the artifacts have so far been retrieved. Photo taken on March 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)