Bob Farley/f8Photo.org — Birmingham News photographer, Tamika Moore, just got back from acception a Pictures of the Year first place award for her photography column “In Focus”. See examples of her work at http://www.poyi.org/65/11/01.php and learn more about 65th Annual POY awards at http://www.poyi.org. Moore is seen here photographing this weeks Earth Day parade in downtown Birmingham. POYi began as a photographic contest in the spring of 1944 in Columbia, Missouri, when the Missouri School of Journalism sponsored its “First Annual Fifty-Print Exhibition” contest. Its stated purpose was, “to pay tribute to those press photographers and newspapers which, despite tremendous war-time difficulties, are doing a splendid job; to provide an opportunity for photographers of the nation to meet in open competition; and to compile and preserve…a collection of the best in current, home-front press pictures.” The contest has tens of thousands of entries each year and has expanded to dozens of categories which include magazine photography.