Preston Gannaway

Preston Gannaway, an American photojournalist, won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2008.

Biography and career Gannaway, a native of North Carolina, grew up in an artistic family. Both her mother and her great-grandmother were artists. Halfway through college she decided she wanted to make the leap from drawing and painting to photography. In 2000, Gannaway graduated from Virginia Intermont College with a bachelor's degree in fine art photography. Her first job after college was at the 8,000 circulation Coalfield Progress, a twice-a-week newspaper in rural southwest Virginia. In 2003 she started work at the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire.

Awards

Gannaway earned Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2008 for her project "Remember Me." The citation called it an "intimate chronicle of a family coping with a parent's terminal illness." Gannaway and reporter Chelsea Conaboy spent two years with the family of Carolynne and Rich St. Pierre as Carolynne fought against cancer and ultimately died. The two journalists continued the story after her death to show St. Pierre's family struggle to deal with her loss. Rich St. Pierre referred to Gannaway and Conaboy as "gentle observers of our most private moments." Gannaway’s work has also been honored in Pictures of the Year International, NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism, The Society for News Design, Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar and other competitions.

Gannaway's work was included in the 2015 Annual Juried Members Exhibition at San Francisco's Cameraworks.