Well, I thought the controversial photo of the male couple was pretty good, from an artistic point of view. It happened to be the most "in your face" photo in this particular photographer's photo essay about gays in Russia. And like it or not, Russia is in the news. Certainly there are other excellent photos out there, including other photo projects given the WPP awards this year. The fact that there have been forum flame wars on various photo forums indicates that the topic is controversial and thus presumably newsworthy. Admittedly, because this isn't a "if it bleeds, it leads" photo from a war zone, from police brutality, or from a natural disaster, it lacks the drama expected of a front page photo. Then we get into the philosophical question: are the "best" PJ photos by definition war, civil war / protest, or disaster photos? That is, does "best" PJ photo mean the photo that sells the most (papers, internet site hits, etc)? Would this definition exclude entertainment or other celebrity photos? The fuzzy paparazzi photo of Prince Charles with whats-her-name-not-his-wife, taken while he was married to Diana, certainly sold a lot of papers.
