Photojournalist Louis Psihoyos won the highest honor, an Oscar, for his documentary film “The Cove” during Sunday’s Academy Awards. The last time a still photographer won an Oscar was when Zana Briski won in 2004 for “Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids.”
Psihoyos directed “The Cove,” which documents an annual, and often brutal, dolphin hunt in the small town of Taiji in Japan. With his first film, it won the Oscar for best documentary.
A graduate from the University of Missouri’s journalism school, Psihoyos worked at the Los Angeles Times before becoming a shooter for National Geographic. Read about his own wrestling with shooting video over stills and the decision to make the film “by whatever means necessary” after failed cooperation with Japanese officials and townspeople in his interview with the National Press Photographer’s Association here. Check out the video for a preview of “The Cove” and visit “The Cove” Web site here.
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