Bumper win for PA snapper

Press Association photographer Niall Carson has been named AIB Photojournalist of the Year 2007 by the Press Photographers Association of Ireland.

As well as scooping the top prize, Carson also came first in the arts category with his picture of the Russian dance troupe Derevo at the Dublin Film Festival, second in the people category for a picture of Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness after a press conference at the Culturlann on the Falls Road in Belfast, and third in the individual study category for a picture of Dr Ian Paisley during the run up to the 7 March Northern Ireland Assembly elections.

Carson, who is one of two PA photographers based in Dublin, said: ‘It’s a great honour to receive such an accolade. I’m really happy the majority of pictures I submitted are from actual events rather than photocalls, but I have to say, my favourite picture is the one of Ian Paisley. A journalist asked him to make the ‘V for victory’ sign, but he turned it around and I got the picture.”

The picture of Paisley wasn’t used at the time of the elections, but was later used on the front cover of the Irish satirical magazine, The Phoenix.