Westport has another Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer.
And it’s not Lynsey Addario or Tyler Hicks.
Spencer Platt — like those two New York Times journalists, a Staples High School graduate — was one of 5 Getty Images photographers who earned their industry’s highest honor today.
The 5 were awarded Pulitzers for Breaking News Photography, for their coverage of the January 6 assault on the US Capitol.
January 6, at the US Capitol (Photo/Spencer Platt for Getty Images)
Platt and Hicks both started their professional careers not in Westport, but at the small Troy (Ohio) Daily News.
Platt has worked with Getty Images for many years. He photographed the Israel-Lebanon conflict of 2006 (and won the World Press Photo of the Year award for his shot of grinning Lebanese girls in front of a devastated building). He also worked in Iraq, Liberia, Congo and Indonesia.
One view of the upheaval in Egypt. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
He is perhaps best known for his iconic photo of the World Trade Center, engulfed in a fireball moments after it was struck by a plane.
(Photo/Spencer Platt for Getty Images)
Amazingly, Platt is not the only one of the 5 Getty Images Pulitzer winners today with a Westport connection. His colleague Win McNamee is the brother of Julia McNamee, for many years an English teacher at Staples High School.
Spencer Platt at work, in 2006.
Well done, Spencer! Congratulations!
Thanks, Dan! Spencer actually was generous enough to speak to Inklings kids when I was an advisor, and he was just wonderful. Of course, I am most proud of my little brother!
A trifecta for Westport. And congratulations to Spencer and to Bernie Platt, his father and my longtime friend and neighbor.
Congratulations Spencer. Well deserved. Our whole family (Abbey, Diane and David) has followed your stellar career for years. We are delighted for you and for your dad, Bernie,