Westport prize-winning photographer Tyler Hicks won another Pulitzer Prize today, his third, this time for images of migrants seeking asylum in Europe.
One of the prize-winning photos by Tyler Hicks of migrants arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Hicks shared the prize in the breaking news category with three other New York Times photographers—Mauricio Lima, Sergey Ponomarev and Daniel Etter as well as with Thomson Reuters.
In 2014, Hicks won in the breaking news photography category for his coverage of a terrorist attack in September 2013 at the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
In 2009, he was part of a New York Times team that won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as was fellow Westporter and 1991 Staples graduate Lynsey Addario.
The Times, in reporting on today’s Pulitzer announcement, said Hicks, a staff photographer for The Times, spent several weeks covering the refugees as they arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos.
His long experience covering the conflicts in the countries that the refugees were fleeing gave him a keen appreciation of the desperation that fueled their journey, as well as the joy they felt to find safe haven, the newspaper said.
Tyler Hicks in New York City in September 2014. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Helen Klisser During for WestportNow.com
“It says something about the fear and control they live under in those countries,” Hicks was quoted as saying. “It was emotional for me to see those people come, and to be able to identify with some of the trauma they lived.”
Michele McNally, an assistant managing editor and director of photography at the Times, said of Hicks: “Tyler can shoot the most aesthetic, memorable and meaningful pictures in any situation, even under fire.”
Jullie Hicks, Tyler’s mother who lives in Westport, said her son got a post-midnight call in Nairobi, where he is based, informing him of the prize and was told to get on the first plane to New York.
