An iconic 7/7 image has won the Nokia Citizen Journalism Awards 2006. The image depicts the harrowing moments after a bomb exploded on the No.30 bus in Tavistock Square, London, on July 7th 2005. It was featured in a number of national newspapers and was broadcast by the BBC. The winner, who has chosen to remain anonymous, wins a Nokia N90 camera phone, photo printer and membership to the Flickr photo sharing website which they are donating to a London bombings charity for auction.
In second place was a dramatic image of the Buncefield oil depot explosion taken from a plane, showing clouds of smoke rising into the atmosphere. The image, taken by David Otway, subsequently ran in the Daily Telegraph, BBC online and the CNN website.
Third prize was awarded for another image depicting the 7/7 bombings, this time one taken just after the Piccadilly line explosion. Alexander Chadwick?s now familiar cameraphone shot was published in worldwide media including the BBC, CNN, Guardian, Times, New York Times and Washington Post.
Nokia, Press Gazette and organisers of the British Press Awards created the Nokia Citizen Journalism Awards. Entries were judged by a high profile panel including Channel 4 news presenter, Jon Snow as well as Vicky Taylor (BBC News Interactivity editor), Nick Wrenn (editor, CNN.com Europe), and Glyn Genin (Chairman of the Picture Editors Awards and former Financial Times Picture Editor). The awards sought to recognise and celebrate the growing phenomenon of citizen journalism and the increasing number of photographs and videos generated by the general public as a result of them witnessing news events with a camera or camera phone. The contest was open to any member of the public who had a photo or video clip published or used by a newspaper, magazine, broadcast service, internet news service, blog or photo sharing website in the last 12 months.
Commenting on the results, Ian Reeves, editor of Press Gazette, said, ?The three images selected by our judges helped bring home to an international audience some of the most significant news events of the past 12 months. It?s clear from the quality of the entries to these awards that citizen journalism, however you define it, is going to play an increasingly significant role in the industry.?
For more information on the Nokia Citizen Journalism Awards, and to view the entries, visit www.citizenjournalismawards.co.uk

Image © Scoopt