It is now official. The Pictures of the Year International competition results are available for perusal. Your humble author has placed in the portrait category with a photograph of author Stephen Dixon after he retired from the John Hopkins University. This is the same contest Jeff Bill, our assistant director of photography, won a third place last year in the Science/Natural History category with a polar bear photograph.

The photograph, one of my personal favorites from 2007, placed third in Portrait. More than 1,800 pictures were entered in that category alone, with six awards given. Of note is second-place winner Platon for a Time cover photograph of Vladimer Putin.

This is the first one of my photographs has placed in this contest since 1995. Even taking a grain of salt with it, as all contests are truly subjective, it makes me truly excited. Unfortunately none of the excellent photographs from fellow Sun staffers placed, but we will see what happens with Best of Photojournalism.