Posted by 9jabook.com on January 29, 2010 at 8:55pm
Bankers are some of the most respected people in Nigeria. Many things make them so, one of which is the perception that they are well paid, and on time. But celebrated photographer George Osodi left the airy comfort of the banking hall for a career in photography in 1999. After obtaining a diploma in business administration from the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Osodi landed a job in a new generation bank, something many would give an arm and a leg for. However, Osodi, soon became unsettled. “I felt I was not doing the right thing,” he says, “there was emptiness inside of me.”
His bold move to step into photography as a journalist with the defunct Comet newspapers has consistently been a good one, with the benefit of hindsight. In 2004, Osodi was named the winner of the African photojournalist of the year prize, sponsored by Fuji. The versatile photographer has seen his images of the Niger Delta as well as other commissioned jobs appear in highly respected papers and magazines all over the world like TIME, The New York Times and Der Spiegel, among many others.
Osodi’s story represents that of many young Nigerians who are turning away from regular employment with multinationals and other corporate organisations to doing something with their talents, nay their hands. But why the sudden interest in and growth of photography as a business in the last few years among young people in Nigeria? In the past, many people associated photography with poor, uneducated artisans who went from one party to another trying to make ends meet by taking wedding and birthday photographs. Though that class of photographers still exists, a new band of young people brandishing highly sophisticated digital equipment has been the one which has brought more prominence to the trade. Many of them without a formal education in photography have found a way to challenge the status quo by doing something different with their camera lenses. Galleries in cosmopolitan Lagos and Abuja now exhibit works of photographers, a fact that has brought fame and fortune to many and made the trade more professional and respectable.
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