Digital Camera Fiend - A Camera Review

Oded Balilty was covering the violent struggle between Jewish settlers on the West Bank and Israeli forces last year when he captured this poignant shot of a lone Jewish woman challenging Israeli security officers.

“I saw this woman hesitate a little bit, and I saw the line of the police and I just grabbed my camera,” Balilty said. “It just was there.”

Balilty, an Associated Press photographer based in his hometown Jerusalem, went to this illegal West Bank outpost near Ra’malla where troops in riot gear were clashing with hundreds of stone-throwing Jewish settlers. Israel’s Supreme Court had earlier cleared the way for demolition of nine homes at the site.

At one point Balilty and his colleague decided to split up to cover more ground. It was then that he came upon the scene that would garner him the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography–photojournalism’s highest award.

“I feel like I kissed the moon. It’s amazing,” Balilty told AP reporters after receiving the award. “I never even imagined it would happen to me.”

Balilty, (pictured left) was born in 1979 in Jerusalem and has spent much of his career covering Israeli-Palestinian issues.

During his days in the Israeli Army he was a photographer for the magazine of the Israeli Defense Forces. After completing his military service he shot for ZOOM 77 agency and the daily paper Yedioth Ahronot. He joined the AP’s Jerusalem photo staff in 2002, as the Palestinian Intifada was climaxing.

He is also part of a team of photographers who were Pulitzer Prize finalists in the breaking news category for their coverage of the war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.