Nigeria’s creative industry is home to a growing pool of talent, but access to opportunities and resources remains a challenge for many emerging creatives. It was against this backdrop that George Okoro founded GO Talent Hunt, a platform created to discover, challenge and empower emerging photographers.

Built on the belief that talent should not be limited by access to expensive equipment or other resources, GO Talent Hunt provides photographers with an opportunity to showcase their creativity, storytelling ability and versatility.

The inaugural season attracted 1,016 applications, with 100 photographers shortlisted to compete across six creative photography challenges.

The contestants were tested across areas including portraiture, landscape, product and lifestyle photography, with each challenge designed to assess their technical ability, creativity and capacity to tell compelling stories through images.

The competition was judged by six professional photographers drawn from different sectors of Nigeria’s photography industry.

After weeks of competition, Tobi Mayowa emerged as the winner of GO Talent Hunt Season One.

Mayowa received a prize package valued at N10 million, comprising cash, photography equipment and training opportunities designed to support his continued creative development.

Bush Digital and Big H Studios were among the sponsors that supported the inaugural edition of the competition.

For founder George Okoro, however, GO Talent Hunt was not simply about producing a winner. The broader vision, he said, is to build a platform where emerging creatives can be discovered, challenged and provided with opportunities to develop their work.

The response to the first season, which attracted more than 1,000 applications, points to the depth of photography talent seeking opportunities to gain visibility and advance professionally.

With its inaugural season completed, GO Talent Hunt is positioning itself as a platform for identifying and supporting emerging photographers, with the organisers describing the first edition as the beginning of a broader journey.