Photographer wins again for following twin Marines

For the second year in a row, Brian Plonka of The Spokesman-Review has won the Cowles Cup, the top prize in the Washington-Oregon AP Photo Contest, for a photo package on identical twin brothers from Idaho who enlisted in the Marine Corps.

The cup is named for William Hutchison Cowles, former publisher of The Spokesman-Review. It goes to the best entry of the contest, regardless of category. The winner was announced Thursday at the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association.

The paper has embarked on a multiyear project following Robert and Matthew Shipp as they have readied for service, trained as Marines and gone to Middle East, where Plonka followed to continue making making images of the twins.

His 2008 winning entry from the "Brothers in Arms" work was a photo package on the brothers that began with their weddings and followed them on their deployments. In awarding the Cowles prize, the judges called Plonka's work "a remarkable story" and "an amazing effort," predicting it would win more prizes.

The Reid Blackburn Memorial award for feature photography went to Andy Rogers of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for an image of brother and sister emptying water from their boots after splashing in the puddles during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.