Akintunde Akinleye

A 2015 New York Times article noted that his work brings “kinetic landscapes to life”. Akinleye has received four nominations for the Prix Pictet award in Photography and Sustainability for his works on Delta: A Vanishing Wetland, Delta Bush Refineries, Makoko: Life on Stilt, and Lagos’ Firemen.

In 2007, Akinleye won the World Press Photo prize for spot news single for his image of a man rinsing soot from his face after a pipeline explosion at Abule Egba, a Lagos suburb. He had pulled through the Lagos traffic on a bike and arrived at the scene of the explosion just ten minutes after it started. He recounted that while surrounded by the billowing smoke, he saw a man who had tried dousing the fire with his bucket of water using the last drop to wash his face. He took about five or six images of the man and moved to another scene. The prize-winning photograph was said to be the last of the sequence of images he took.

Akintunde began his photojournalism career at Daily Independent, a local newspaper in Lagos, a few years after receiving his bachelor’s degree. While covering the coronation of the Oba of Lagos, Oba Riliwan Akiolu, he was beaten by security officers for getting too close to Atiku Abubakar, Vice President of Nigeria. His camera was broken, and he spent a month in hospital, it was reported. He began working for Reuters in 2006 and became a correspondent for the West Africa region while working with Finbarr O’Reilly, the Reuters regional editor at the time. He temporarily quit journalism, and resigned from his job at Reuters in 2018 to devote his energy full-time to his doctoral studies.

Upon completing a workshop on documentary photography and photojournalism, organised by the World Press Photo Foundation at the Nigeria Institute of Journalism in Lagos in 2005, Akintunde was appointed a guest lecturer in the proficiency certificate in photojournalism, in the quest to elevate the standard of practice of the profession in Nigeria. As a PhD candidate, he has taught courses in African popular culture, African cinema, and visual anthropology, assisting designated professors in African Studies and anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. During the fieldwork for his doctoral research: Gendering a Small God: Gelede Religion, Pentecostal Media, and Spirituality in Urban Lagos, Akintunde took up an adjunct teaching position in the school of Media and Film at the Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos for practical delivery of topics in photo/video-journalism to participating students.

In 1997, he received a bachelor’s degree in Social Studies Education from Ondo State University in Ado Ekiti (Now Ekiti State University) and attended the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) in Lagos for a post-graduate diploma in Journalism.

At age 5, Akintunde started his primary education at St. Jude’s Primary School in Mushin and later transferred to Layi-Oyekanmi Primary School when the government expanded the public school system in 1979. He then attended Eko Boys’ High School (EBHS) for his secondary school education from 1983 to 1988.

Akintunde Akinleye (born April 19, 1971) is a photojournalist whose images centre around photo-activism and trial narrative subjects. A former Reuters photographer covering West Africa, his photography has documented Nigeria's postcolonial history. He is the first Nigerian photographer to receive the World Press Photo prize (2007), for his image of a pipeline explosion in Lagos. The same year, he received the National Geographic All Roads award. His photographs have been published in Time, Vogue, The New York Times, and other publications.