Adam Ferguson

AP’s Power of Photography Award is awarded in recognition of the power that photography has to move us and challenge our preconceptions. The winner is an Australian-born photojournalist who first gained recognition in 2009 for his work in Afghanistan. since then he has worked internationally, with a focus on conflict and civilians caught up in it, contributing to The New York

Times, Time magazine and National Geographic, amongst others. This award is for his work on a story for The New

York Times that won First Prize in the People (stories) category at last year’s world Press Photo Contest.

Adam was working on assignment in Nigeria when he heard about a young woman who had been deployed by militant Islamist group Boko Haram as a suicide bomber but had escaped. since 2014, Boko Haram has abducted more than 2,000 women and girls, many of whom have been strapped with explosives and ordered to blow themselves up in crowded areas. A small number managed to escape and find help.

‘I wanted the pictures to celebrate the girls’ resilience,’ he explained, ‘and accentuate their bravery and beauty, but the challenge was how to tell this story when, for their own safety, I couldn’t show their faces.’ Adam brought over a journalist from The New York

Times and she interviewed the girls while Adam photographed them. ‘ The girls were mostly around 18 or 19, and had been kidnapped when they were around 13,’ explained Adam. ‘some were turned into war brides,

some saw their entire families being killed.’

Adam photographed 18 girls in two days, working in a series of safe houses and using the surroundings that were there. The lighting was deceptively simple. ‘I brought a full set of strobes and light modifiers to Nigeria,’ he told AP, ‘but to save time I ended up just using one of my flash heads with the modelling light on, and my ISO set to 3200.’

Despite the limitations that Adam was working under, this set of images shows the power of a simple idea carried out with skill, sensitivity and clear stylistic vision.

Adam Ferguson grew up in Australia but now lives in Brooklyn, USA. He sees himself as a storyteller, specialising in conflict and geopolitical issues. He contributes to various publications including TheNew York Times, Time and National Geographic

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Adam wanted to celebrate the bravery of the girls who managed to escape from Boko Haram. ‘All these girls had been through a very intense level of indoctrination at a very impressionable age,’ he said.