I was very pleased to see that the Guardian Unlimited online feature ‘Learning Lessons in Africa’ has won the Journalism.co.uk multimedia storytelling competition. Using photographs by Ami Vitale and video by Danny Chung taken in Mali, the report was produced by Elliot Smith and designer Paddy Allen.
It is a well deserved award. The report superbly integrates the colour images by Vitale with black and white video by Chung. The commentary by Vitale (and a second story by Jeevan Vasagar) is lucid, intelligent, moving and very much makes it point, as to do her powerful images.
I’m also pleased because the report shows work that it funded by Oxfam, a charity I’ve been a supporter of since I started work.
Finally I’m pleased because Ami Vitale is a fine photographer whose work – you can see more on her http://www.amivitale.com/main.html web site – I’ve written about on several occasions in the past.
Me in Alcatraz. Photo (C) 2005, Ami Vitale
It was a great pleasure to meet her in Poland in 2005 – and to find that she was a a fan of the web site I was then running. As you can see from my diary (and the pictures) we got on very well together. You can also see her taking my picture on the street, although she took a better one in Alcatraz later.