This month's cover features Ed Eckstein's photograph, which won Judges' Choice in AJN 's photojournalism contest last year (see also cover, November 2005). He took the image in Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, while on assignment. As Eckstein passed by a patient's room he overheard jubilant laughter coming from inside it and stopped to take the photograph.
Eckstein took the photo on this page about six years ago in the Bahia section of Brazil, where he went with UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to document nutritional problems. These nurses were from a rural village hospital.
After receiving his first camera at age 12, Eckstein continued to study photography at the Philadelphia College of Art, now called the University of the Arts. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Time Life books, and various publications. Drawn to documentary photography, he views health care as a "vital way to look at life" and has enjoyed capturing people at work. The summer of 1998, Eckstein lived in Doylestown Hospital in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where he was asked to take photographs for the hospital's 75th anniversary, which are now on permanent display there. The exhibition, "Healing Images, Healing Arts: 75 years of care at Doylestown Hospital," was originally held at the James A. Michener Art Museum, which helped to sponsor the project.