The Man Behind The Lens

He had a National Diploma in Photography from the Westminster College in Battersea, London, United Kingdom before proceeding to the University of Westminster also in the United Kingdom to study Photography Arts.

Following this rediscovered path, ‘dayo Adedayo worked as a freelance photographer with Ovation International from 2002 – 2007 and has to his credit the opportunity of being the hand behind the lenses for the Magazine’s best selling edition captioned “See Dubai and Die” in 2003. This edition has been attributed to the opening up of Dubai as a tourist destination to Nigerians.

Also between 2005 and 2007 he was the official photographer for ‘NIGERIA – THE HEART OF AFRICA’, a project that precipitated a lot of travelling all around the world, exhibiting Nigeria to the world in pictures.

Within this period, with the introduction of the E-passport, Adedayo’s pictures were watermarked on the pages of the Nigerian Passport, an honour he considers as the highest honour that could be bestowed on an artist, and one that would live beyond him. His work is also on the One Hundred Naira note, the Nigerian currency produced in 2014 to mark the 100 years of Nigeria. He was also the official photographer to the Federal Government of Nigeria for the Centenary Celebration.

In 2010, he published his first book titled ‘NIGERIA’, a pictorial and informative compendium on Nigeria. This was immediately followed with another pictorial survey titled ‘LAGOS STATE – THE CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE’. The books were best sellers and caused quite a stir for both the extensive research and quality of production but also because as it was the first of its kind to be published in the country by a Nigerian.

‘Dayo Adedayo has been quite busy since then and has been involved in a number of projects. In 2012, he was a member of the Nigeria Board on Technical Education charged to look into setting up Photography as a course in Nigerian Polytechnics. He is now an external examiner at Auchi Polytechnic.

A centenary edition of ‘MONOPOLY NIGERIA’ by Bestman Games released into the market in 2014 has 98% of pictures from Adedayo’s archives, so also are all the pictures on display at the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi International Airport, Abuja.