A Ghanaian photographer, Michael Aboya, has made his country proud by winning the Best Photo of the Year at the 2019 Agora Awards held in Barcelona, Spain, on Wednesday, 6 November.
The competition was hosted by free-to-use photography app, Agora, and received over 130,000 submissions from 193 countries.
The event featured exhibition of 50 finalists of the competition with the collaboration of Fujifilm, a Japanese multinational photography and Kitoli laboratory.
Michael’s ‘Songs of Freedom’ photo garnered more than 500,000 votes and was voted Best Photo of the Year, awarding Aboya with a prize of $25,000.
‘Songs of Freedom’ was shot in Labadi, one of the suburbs of Accra.
According to Michael Aboya, the vision for ‘Songs of Freedom’ came to him while listening to Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ at home, and where upon he conceived the idea to bring it back to life.
“I moved to the beach a few hours after listening to the song and gathered a group of kids to pose for the camera. A kid in particular had the most expression among them and became the focus of the image,” Aboya, who became a full-time photographer just about two years ago, said.
Felix Dappah
More on Agora Awards 2019 at https://agoraimages.com/blog/agora-awards-2019/