The Foreign Correspondents’ Association of Uganda (FCAU) together with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) are pleased to announce the opening of the Uganda Press Photo Award 2013 Winner’s Exhibition. The opening ceremony and prize-giving will be at 6 pm today October 17th2013 at Makerere Art Gallery, Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts, Makerere University.
This year’s winners include a large number of freelance photographers from all over Uganda, as well as from the national newspapers.
The award ceremony is preceded by a public panel discussion on the subject of photojournalism’s role in contemporary society, which started at 12.00 pm today and still on going. The discussions stimulated around the state of photojournalism in Uganda throughout the years, and embracing the role of photojournalism for society and outlines of how photojournalism can support empowerment and encourage social change.
At the event is Elly Rwakoma who said that the new technology is being wasted. The young people of today are not taking up opportunities to use it as well as it need to be. He challenges young men to be serious, read and put theory into practice. Rwakoma spoke about how he took a photo of an accident at Owen Falls Dam in 1971-2 and a soldier destroyed his camera he had another one.
This kind of dialogue sets the stage for the official opening of the exhibition, which will include the winners and runners up of the Uganda Press Photo Award, as well as historical images from photojournalism’s early days in Uganda. Photographers from all over the country submitted their pictures and the exhibition will show some of best Ugandan photojournalism, in a range of fields, from the past year.
Tweets coming in from in the event have to this say;
First presentation at #UPPA by Elly Rwakoma and Peter Busomoke. Classic photographers!
— Simon Kaheru (@skaheru) October 17, 2013
At #UPPA at makerere wth @africimages + AFPs Carl de Souza speaking on developing powerful photos #uganda pic.twitter.com/b25sOpQMVQ
— Rosebell Kagumire (@RosebellK) October 17, 2013
#UPPA Peter Busomoke started photography in 1969 when the Pope came. He took a pic of Obote with the Pope using his Kodak camera & took off
— Simon Kaheru (@skaheru) October 17, 2013