One day in January 2014, I received a call from a friend to submit an entry in a photo contest organised by an affiliate company of Zinox Computers known then as TaskDirect but now as Yudala. The contest was about taking the beautiful Lagos photo with any medium available to you; phones, tablets or cameras. The first thought that came to my mind was to hurry up and submit my entry so I can win the contest since I had lots of interesting Lagos images in my portfolio. The first thing I did was to check out their website to see the terms and conditions attached to the competition. The major condition there was that one must present the photo in the medium that was used to capture it. That also implies that there would not be anything like post production or editing of the chosen image.
The next step I took was to start going out daily with my camera. It was not so easy to go out daily with it since professional cameras are usually heavy and adding it to a bag that already has a computer is a major weight gainer. The assignment was to capture the most beautiful picture of Lagos and it could be at any time or place but it must be unique and beautiful and must be uploaded from the camera at the time of submission. There are many beautiful spots in Lagos but one of the major challenges of capturing them is that when one gets to such places, one might be in a fast moving vehicle thereby making it difficult to click. One day, I went to visit my friends at the 20 floors Western House on Broad street Lagos, I jokingly told them about the competition and how I was going take the winning shot and we all laughed about it. I walked through the stairs from the first floor to the 20th floor and got up to see a very different view of Lagos Island which I knew was hidden to many. I started clicking till I was tired of taking shots. At that point, I knew that any one of the shots was the winning shot even though my major challenge was which of them would be the right one to go with.
The next day, I left the house to go and present my entry since the rule stated also that the presentation must be done personally with the medium of capture. So that morning, I went to the park and entered the bus going Oshodi which should stop at Gbagada office of the company. However, for the first time, the bus refused to stop me there giving some irritating excuses why it would not. Instead they took me to Oshodi which was way out of my direction. With that kind of driver's attitude, it became more obvious to me that I was going to win that competition and that every other thing happening was meant to discourage me from participating. The next day, I left from the office for details go to:http://philipsakwari.com.ng/2016/04/05/how-i-won-the-best-lagos-photo-contest-2014/

wow! congrats!



really a beautiful view.