Jacob Otieno

First Place, Single Photo Professional

Jacob is currently the photo editor of The Standard newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya. He received a certificate in photojournalism from the University of Nairobi and was Kenya’s photographer of the year in 2002. Jacob was born in Kenya’s Nyanza province, where he first developed an interest in photography at the age of eight after his late brother Zebby bought him an Olympus camera. At 13, Jacob began submitting photos to a children’s magazine; later he joined a journalism club in school and began contributing to a local newspaper in his region.

Jacob’s winning photograph shows a major replanting effort in the Ngong Hills, southwest of the capital city of Nairobi. Several private sector organizations came together with the local community with the ultimate plan of planting 120,000 indigenous trees. Over 1,000 trees were planted in the area portrayed, in support of recovery and conservation of an important water catchment area, and to once again create a forest sanctuary for wildlife.

Jacob said he wanted the extent of devastation to be clear in the photo’s background, where a once heavily wooded hill is now home to shrubs and the odd tree. As for the foreground, “I was trying to capture the urgency on the ground as the volunteers raced to plant as many trees as possible before the cloudy skies opened up,” he explained.

Jacob was also struck by the fact that women volunteers outnumbered men by almost four to one.

“Women are society’s best change agents, and I was trying to capture this when I shot the three women in the picture,” he said.