The Society of Professional Journalists (Virginia Pro Chapter) has announced that Scott Elmquist is its 2024 Lifetime Achievement award winner. Elmquist started working with Style Weekly/Inside Business in 1999. He is currently the senior photographer with Style Weekly/VPM News.
The prestigious Lifetime Achievement award, formerly known as the George Mason award, has been given out annually since 1964. The award recognizes people who have made outstanding contributions to Virginia journalism. Christopher Tyree, SPJ President (’24-’25) of the Virginia Pro Chapter, said in a letter congratulating Elmquist: “For over 25 years, you’ve captured powerful moments that resonate deeply with Richmonders and Virginians alike. As a photojournalist, you’ve infused your work with passion and insight, allowing us to connect with our community and see what truly matters, as if a veil has been lifted.”
Elmquist joins notable Virginians such as Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Paul Williams, Richmond Free Press owners Ray and Jean Boone, Beth Macy, bestselling author of “Dopesick” and “Factory Man,” and a former reporter with The Roanoke Times, Richmond Times Dispatch senior photographer Bob Brown, and John Mitchell Jr., crusading journalist and founding editor of The Planet, who have all received the award.
“As a photographer, Scott has that rare combination of technical fluency and human empathy that distinguishes the work of all great shooters — an unerring eye for composition and the play of light and shadow, elevated by an instinctive ability to read the faces, feel the moment, and make photographs that ennoble the subject, strike a chord in the heart, and cause us to pause, reflect, and care,” says Don Belt, former senior editor for Geography and World Affairs at National Geographic Magazine, who retired in 2011.
He added: “Scott’s 25-year career at Style Weekly has produced a monumental body of work that captures the soul of a mid-sized Southern city coming to terms with a history of racial injustice while living through a time of reckoning and change, from the tiki torches of Charlottesville to Black Lives Matter and the crumbling symbols of white supremacy. Elmquist may have documented nearly every major local news event of the 21st century, but he’s also covered the quiet, untold stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things: a sequined equestrian at the Virginia State Fair, a river baptism, a mother grieving for her murdered son, an anguished funeral.”
In 2019 and 2020, Elmquist was awarded first place in the category of best photography (for all of North America) from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for his images of gun violence and protests in the city of Richmond. He is a perennial winner of Virginia Press Association awards, garnering 10 Best in Show awards and helping his team win the VPA’s Journalistic Integrity and Community Service Award in 2017. He also won first place for best news photograph (for all circulations in Virginia) in the Virginia News Photographers’ Association annual contest in 2008 and 2006. In 2019, he partnered with Initiatives of Change, a Richmond nonprofit, for a three-day interactive exhibit to raise awareness and promote healing from trauma brought on by gun violence.
“It takes a certain strength for a journalist to cover violence. I say from experience that it takes greater strength and emotional courage to confront the trauma of abused and hurting people, and then to portray them not as mere victims, but as survivors, complex humans who are more than their tragedy. This is exactly how Scott represents the people in his photos,” says Brian Palmer, Peabody award-winning journalist, former CNN correspondent and former Beijing Bureau Chief for US News & World Report. “I heard confirmation of my assessment from people who packed that room for ‘I Am Here’ — the relatives and friends of those killed, neighbors, Richmond community leaders and concerned citizens. They came for the excellent photos, yes, but also for the caring, open, and gifted professional who produced them.”
In July 2020, Sue Morrow, editor of News Photographer magazine, the official publication of the National Press Photographers Association, reached out to Elmquist wanting to include one of his photographs in its July-August issue, which was focusing mostly on national protest coverage. The photograph is of young men playing basketball in front of the heavily graffitied Robert E. Lee monument.
“This photograph is one of the iconic ones of this time,” she said.
In August 2020, Elmquist reflected on the tumultuous summer of change in a cover story for Style:
“On June 30, I spent the night in my car, parked on Monument about 150 feet from the Stonewall Jackson statue. I texted back and forth with photographers Sandra Sellars and Regina Boone from the Richmond Free Press, who were also staking out the area. We had a tip that the Jackson statue was coming down that night, but as the first rays of light crept through the trees, no movement. Sellars and I shared a power bar on the sidewalk and tried to strategize. We agreed sleep was what we needed first. At around noon I received a text that Jackson was coming down. I raced in from the West End in a panic and found parking just off Monument. The crowd swelled as workers prepped and secured the statue with a crane and heavy-duty straps. As they neared the moment when the statue, which stood at the intersection of Boulevard and Monument for 100 years, was to be removed, a torrential downpour cut loose. I had no protective rain gear since I left the house so quickly. The statue came down in a downpour and several photographers had cameras ruined. I lost one Nikon camera body and 80-200 mm lens. I was lucky. Some photographers had all their gear ruined by rain that seemed to never let up. But the photographers and crowd stayed even as lightning lit up the skies. As the statue came down, church bells rang out and applause erupted. History witnessed.”
“It’s been great working closely with Scott for the past 15 years because he cares about doing things the right way,” says Style Weekly’s Editor Brent Baldwin. “We’ve weathered tremendous changes in the industry together, during a time when resources are scarce at journalism outlets. You need committed people willing to go the extra mile, no matter how long it takes, in service of the story — and Scott has always been willing to do that.”
Thad Williamson, professor of leadership studies and philosophy, politics, economics and law at the University of Richmond, says: “Scott has a particular knack for capturing raw, unfiltered, honest emotions, be they of joy, grief, anger, frustration or wonder. In a city historically defined by racism and racial inequity, he documents both the city’s ongoing inequities and efforts at resistance and change with compassion and concern. His work never sensationalizes violence or pain, never seeks to feed or trade off of stereotypes, never seeks to demean his subjects. Instead, Mr. Elmquist seeks to capture our shared humanity so as to increase social awareness and social understanding — and does so with tremendous success.”
