VOL. 23, NO. 12	JANUARY 23, 1998

"Cover of the Year"

he winners of the 1998 Alfred Eisenstaedt Awards for Magazine Photography were announced Jan. 12 by Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.

  The new prizes, administered by Columbia under a grant from LIFE, will be given to photographers in 20 categories at a Mar. 25 awards ceremony in New York City. The "Eisies" are named for photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, a pioneer of photojournalism, known to many as "Eisie," who died in 1995 at the age of 96.

  The Cover of the Year Award, given to the outstanding photographic magazine cover of 1997, went to photographer Matt Mahurin for his Jan. 23 Rolling Stone cover depicting singer Marilyn Manson.

  Photographer Bruce Weber earned the most Eisie citations, garnering four honors: he took first place in individual portraiture for his study of writer Eudora Welty, published in the March issue of W magazine, and he was named a finalist in portraiture and two fashion categories for work that appeared in W. David LaChapelle won best Style/Fashion photo for his Vanity Fair image of Alexander McQueen, took first place in the Cutting Edge essay category for his June/July Detour feature, "Cut it Out," and received finalist recognition in the same category for his John Galliano fashion work in Detour.

  Five photographers were honored twice: Jane Evelyn Atwood of Contact Press Images for a LIFE photo essay on women in prison; Adam Bartos for his DoubleTake story "Hither Hills"; Steve McCurry of Magnum for his National Geographic work on India; Gilles Peress of Magnum for images made in the Congo for The New Yorker and Vukovar for Smithsonian, and Matt Mahurin for a second image of singer Manson in the same issue of Rolling Stone. Both of Mahurin's images were digitally altered, a technique allowed in three of the Eisenstaedt Awards categories (Cover, Cutting Edge and Style/Fashion).

  The winning photographs, finalists and some other nominated images will appear in a special issue of LIFE appearing on newsstands Mar. 30.