Queensland College of Art alumnus Adam Ferguson has scooped two of the world’s most prestigious photography prizes for his striking portraits of Nigerian girls recruited as suicide bombers by Boko Haram.
Adam was named Photographer of the Year at the Pictures of the Year International competition and took out top prize in the People and Stories category of the World Press Photo awards for the series of images commissioned by The New York Times.
Taking inspiration from a famous Nigerian painting, Adam perfected the set up in his studio in New York before heading to Nigeria, where he shot all 83 portraits in a single day.
“These girls are impoverished and marginalised, but the journeys they had undertaken commanded such bravery,” he said.
“In homage to this bravery I tried to present the women as dignified and beautiful, hoping to transcend the more mainstream narratives we have seen around the Boko Haram phenomenon.”
Adam first gained recognition for his