The Award-Winning Photograph: Bus yet to come to a stop, a passenger turns the rolling tire to a ladder and boards the bus through the window. Avery clear and present danger to safety
A veteran of the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents-Nigeria, LAAC-N, also an eminent LAAC Chairman Emeritus, who on another occasion was a Vice Chairman, Dr Isaac Ayodele Jimoh, has graciously emerged as Nigeria’s best Action/News Photographer of the year 2023.
The annual award instituted about 30 years ago, was done under the auspices of the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence, DAME.
According to DAME, the award spans a broad spectrum of news coverage either by writing, still photography, or motion pictures.
According to the organizer, the scouting annually to recognize talents and creativity was such an exciting “humanistic effort to stimulate and reward the pursuit of excellence in media work”, Dame said.
Mr. Isaac Jimoh Ayodele, a veteran LAAC member and two times Vice Chairman, and also the current Photo Editor of the Nation Newspapers, was pronounced the winner by the panel of judges in the category of Action/News Photography, 2023 edition.
Caption: Dr. Isaac Jimoh Ayodele, (Left) in a warm handshake while receiving his plaque from Mr. Oladimeji
Ayodele in a chat said he had cultivated what has now become an innate capacity to intuitively recognize unusual scenes and events while his fingers often involuntarily hit on the camera’s button to click effortlessly.
The 2023 Best News Photograph Award winner related thus, “When my eyes found an unusual scenario, my brain in less than microsecond process the signal and like the speed of light, my fingers instantly become turbo changed and hit the click button as many times as the circumstance allows. Hardly do I have control over that process as long as my eyes gaze intently on the object of attraction”, Ayodele narrated.
He added that mundane things are no more attractive to the lens of his camera not to mention the human being with about three decades of experience using, and growing in the art and science of making the best of a modern digital camera.
Dr. Ayodele who was once the acting Chairman of LAAC said the level of reflex, involuntary reactions between his eyes and his camera is so synced that in any uncommon scenes, his arms, fingers, and the lens of the camera often cooperate in such a bewildering manner that he often snaps without much ado focusing, and the kernel of the photo-news more than often, are not missed. At least in about 9 (Nine) occurrences out of 10, (Ten).
Every photojournalist in LAAC possesses the skill to cover both corporate and individual events, with a still camera. They are excellent in video coverage. They have never been found wanting especially in the production of events’ albums.
Caption: From the lens of Isaac Jimoh Ayodele, an improvised overpass from a remote area within Lagos airport that people pass illegally to access the Mafoluku community. FAAN has since done the needful
From all of us at NTH, we say congratulations to Isaac Jimoh Ayodele. We wish him more glorious wins at greater heights.
DAME VISION AND MISSION
DAME was designed as an annual platform to reward superior performance while Media Review would give monthly feedback to the media on how they were faring.
Operating from the premise that the media as keepers of public conscience and morality need a special and regular attention so that the public trust reposed in them is not betrayed
The two products were thus designed to boost public confidence in the media by encouraging the media to tread the path of ethical responsibility.
DAME has the honor of being the only awards scheme in Nigeria that covers the media disciplines of Journalism, Broadcasting, and Advertising. In organizing the awards annually, the DAME Secretariat:
• Identifies specific award categories;
• Invites entries from across the nation at a specific period. Such entries can be made by the authors/producers of the works themselves or by interested members of the public;
• Independently monitors year-round the performance of the various media, and also enters work for nomination;
• Screens all entries to ensure that specified rules and guidelines are followed;
• Collates data on the nominated work and its author/producer;
• Assembles an independent panel of judges to assess the entries;
• Organises a befitting presentation ceremony;
• Publishes a commemorative edition of Media Review on the winning entries, detailing how and why they won.
The competition is restricted to works produced wholly by Nigerians that appeared in the Nigerian media during the year of assessment. In assessing entries, the judges are expected to emphasize the degree and thoroughness of the investigation, the relevance of the work to society, the style of presentation, and the impact the work had.
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