Kenyan photographer Brian Otieno is the overall winner of the inaugural East African Photography Award during the Uganda Press Photo Awards held in Kampala on Thursday night. Otieno, the brains behind Kibera Stories project, emerged the winner for his photo of a young girl entertaining residents on a pathway within the sprawling slums.
Ugandan freelance photojournalist Badru Katumba took second spot while Reuters photographer Thomas Mukoya (Kenya) settled for third. Simon Fidelis Jnr from Tanzania got an honorary mention.
Otieno, who was not present at the ceremony, tweeted: “Good news. Tonight. I am awarded the overall winner in the inaugural East African Photography Award by Uganda Press Photo Award (@UPPAward). This is for my people, those who constantly allow me to sneak into their lives and share where they belong…”
He would receive a Canon 80D with an EF 18-135mm lens sponsored by Canon Central and North Africa and his work will be exhibited for one month during the winners’ exhibition in Kampala this month.
Daily Monitor’s Alex Esagala was declared the overall winner of the Uganda Press Photo Awards for his photo of Ugandan police trying to Makerere University Guild President Papa Were Salim and a colleague during a students protest in April (See below). Jibril Kizwera won the Young Photographer Award
Winners in other categories were Esagala (News), Richard Sanya (Sports), Katumba (Environment), Moses Lesima (Urban) and Timothy Latim and Gertrude Namutebi (People). In a rare feat, Sanya won in the Daily Life category, Katumba came second in the sports category while Esagala also took third position in the news category while
Nairobi-based independent photographer Georgina Goodwin, who was one of the judges, said: “We were thrilled with the quality of this year’s entries.”
Otieno, who was born and brought up in Kibera, said he started the Kibera Stories project to document life in the slums from an insider’s view.
“I grew up in this place called Kibera, Nairobi’s biggest slum, where there are so many people and stories. I walk around and see a millions things, so I started taking photos with my cell phone camera and uploading them on social media. I started getting people interested in this place. This is how I started my project Kibera stories, which I mostly post on Instagram because it’s visual and interactive. People will contact me on Instagram and ask me what’s happening in the area. I became the Kibera expert!” he said in a previous interview.
“The project grew and grew. I then bought my first camera, and today I’m still expanding the project. You see, if you google Kibera, most of the images that will pop up only show the poverty side of Kibera. My project was different because it’s mixed up. It shows a lot of things: the good, the bad and everything else,” he added.
For the inaugural edition, visual storytellers from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda were free to submit entries depicting any theme.
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“For the inaugural award, we’re keeping it open thematically. The world around us is changing fast, and as creative workers it is our job to understand and keep up with those changes. Cultural, socio-political, environmental and technological issues affect individuals and societies and the way we live, and the old collides with the new at every turn. We are excited to see stories that show the region and its people and cultures in a new light,” the organisers said while announcing its launch in June.
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