Kenya’s First Photography Awards
Kenyan photography is on the rise. Our latest issue is a testament to this and the Kenyan Photography Awards this Tuesday, 26 November 2013 displayed all the amazing talent that is currently capturing Kenya. The event was a huge leap forward for the industry and the award show will help further the professional development Kenya. The Photography Association of Kenya and creativity hub PAWA 254 were the brains behind the event that brought together photography professionals, new talent, government representatives, private business, media houses, art institutions and NGOs in order to showcase the best in Kenyan photography and promote excellence in the field. With a few first time glitches they managed to bring all these people together and create a huge success.
The night’s all-time standout was sports photographer Thomas Mukoya who bagged the overall title worth KES 200,000 KES besides winning the title in the Sports category and being the runner up in the Daily Life category.
Thandiwe Muriu stood out from the fresh crop of photographers by not only sharing the Young Photographer of the year award with Louis Nderi but also grabbing an individual Portraiture Photographer of the year award. Of course we are very proud to have her photograph on the cover of the latest issue.
Thandiwe Muriu and Louis Nderi
Other well-deserving winners were:
News Photographer of the year 2013 - Georgina Goodwin
Daily Life Photographer of the year 2013 - David Mutua
Nature Photographer of the year 2013 - Karim Kara
Creative Photographer of the year 2013 - Joe Kiragu.
At stake was a KES 100,000 prize for the winner in each category. The event organizers did a great job putting the event together and had managed to attract 1,200 entries for the competition. Hats of for pulling of an important event though a few details gave the overall impression some cracks. Professional videos where crafted for each nominee but the audiovisual presentations where somewhat ruined by an unprofessional effort, where the videos went back and fort to the desktop of the computer in a clumsy effort to adjust sound and put on the next video; a shame when a lot of preproduction effort had gone into the presentations.
Arriving in the hall the KICC conference room we where meet with a very well-executed curation of photos from all the nominees. Every guest received a beautiful catalogue with an overview of all the entries and the judges. Again, the attention to detail seemed to be missing as the Organiser’s Remarks where supplemented with a low-resolution photo of PAWA254 General Manager Njeri Mwangi.
Overall the event was a great success and we expect that the effects of its presence will carry on long into the new year. Congratulations to the organizers and the winners!
