Nigerian documentary photographer, Yagazie Emezi, has been awarded the Inaugural Creative Bursary Award by Getty Images.
The 26 year-old is among the six recipients selected by an industry leading panel of the international photo curating platform to get amounts between $2,000 and $5,000.
Other recipients include Neema Githere from Kenya; Oriana Koren, Jeremy Dennis, Donavon Smallwood and Tara Sellios from the United States of America.
Emezi, who hails from Abia State, came in joint second place with Neema Githere for a prize sum of $3,000.
The news was shared on the official website of Getty Images and confirmed by Emezi on her Instagram page: @yagazieemezi, on Tuesday, where she wrote: “Excited to announce that I am among the 6 recipients selected for the @gettyimages Creative Bursary (@gettyimagescreative) for emerging photographers!
“Thanks to the funds, I’ll finally have some small piece of mind to set time aside to put form to the things in my head lol.
“Congratulations to the rest of the recipients (it was great to see a familiar name on the list representing Kenya @findingneema)!
“Ready for the challenge and looking forward to seeing how we make use of this opportunity to tell more of our necessary stories.”
Emezi began her journey as a self-taught photographer in early 2015 and has since been commissioned by Al-Jazeera, New York Times, Vogue, Refinery29, Everyday Projects, and UNFPA.
The Vlogger and graduate of Cultural Anthropology and African Studies from the University of New Mexico, came into limelight for her continuous project: “Another Tale by Moonlight.”
She returned to Lagos from the United States in 2014 to “document life in Nigeria as it truly is”.
Emezi has worked on several projects, including Felaberation and the Lagos Fashion Week.
In 2017, she was a participant of the World Press Photo Masterclass West Africa and is a contributor to Everyday Africa.
Getty Images Inaugural Creative Bursary Awards was established in October 2017 to support emerging photographers, who must be under 30 or have been pursuing professional photography for less than three years.
The annual $40,000 Bursary will enable them to realise commercial photographic projects, which, without funding, they might not have otherwise been able to pursue.
For the selection, participants were asked to submit a project proposal and visual brief in support of their creative idea.
Awardees were selected from the pool of entries.
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