Two photojournalists, Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post and Mary Chind of The Des Moines Register, have been awarded this year’s Pulitzer Prizes for Photography.

Chind’s photo of a daring water rescue (above) won the award for Best Breaking News Photograph. The image, published in July of last year, captures what the Pulitzer board called the “heart stopping moment” in which a man reaches into the rapids in a desperate attempt to rescue a drowning woman.

The woman’s husband died after the pair went over a dam in a boat, and rescue workers could not reach her. Finally a local construction worker set-up a makeshift harness from a crane and lowered himself just above the raging water. Chind’s incredible photograph captures the scene as he heroically plucks the woman from the water.

In the other major category, Craig F. Walker won the award for Best Feature Photography for his moving photo essay of a teenage soldier’s journey before, during and after his enlistment in the Army. Walker followed Ian Fisher for 27 months, from recruitment and training through deployment to Iraq and finally his return home.

The Pulitzer board lauded Walker’s work as “an intimate portrait of a teenager who joins the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq, poignantly searching for meaning and manhood.” A full tour through Walker’s project can be seen at DenverPost.com.