Former H-L photographer wins Pulitzer Prize for photo series of Utah family
A former Lexington Herald-Leader photographer and University of Kentucky graduate has won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.
Jahi Chikwendiu, a Lexington native and Tates Creek High School graduate, won for a series of photos of a Utah family whose young father was battling terminal cancer at the same time his wife was expecting the family’s first baby, according to the Pulitzer Prize board.
The Pulitzer Prizes were announced May 4.
Chikwendiu was working for the Washington Post at the time the 2025 series ran. Chikwendiu had worked for the national media outlet since 2001, according to information on his website. The Post also won a Pulitzer for its series on the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, efforts to slash the federal government.
‘Bawling my eyes out’
Chikwendiu said the photographs were the last ones he took for the newspaper before taking a buy out on July 31, 2025. He became close with Tanner and Shay Martin, the couple featured in his article. The funeral of Tanner Martin, who had stage four colon cancer was July 5.
“I was sitting at his funeral bawling my eyes out,” Chikwendiu remembered. Tanner Martin was “a great spirit and a good dude.”
“I’m proud I went out on a story that I deeply, deeply cared about,” Chikwendiu said. He was also able to take a buy out prior to the Post laying off its entire photography staff in February. “I left on my own terms.”
Prior to working at the Washington Post, he worked for the Herald-Leader for several years and was named the Photographer of the Year by the Kentucky News Photographers Association in 1998, less than three months after starting to work full-time at the newspaper.
Chikwendiu had not planned on becoming a photojournalist, according to his website. He attended the University of Kentucky and received a degree in math and a master’s degree in education with the intention of teaching. He taught for one year before he started at the Lexington newspaper.
As a child, Chikwendiu said he really wanted to make movies. He found one of his father’s cameras in a closet and began taking still photos because he didn’t have access to a video camera.
“I would walk around the house holding my hands up like a square,” Chikwendiu said.
He loved taking photos, but UK did not have a cinematography or film department at the time. A self-proclaimed “math nerd” he opted to major in the subject. Still, photography tugged at him.
“I was talking all math classes and a photography class,” Chikwendiu said.
While teaching during the 1997-1998 school year, he visited the Washington Post to talk to photo editors there about becoming a photojournalist. They told him to go home and start generating clips. He started freelancing for the Herald-Leader that summer. In September, then-photo editor Ron Garrison hired him full-time.
It was Garrison and other longtime Herald-Leader photographers who taught Chikwendiu to focus on the work, not the awards or applause.
“I don’t think about contests. Garrison taught me that. You just do the best job you can do,” Chikwendiu said.
He eventually plans to move back to Lexington full-time. He’s enjoying retirement.
Yet, he is still pursuing his childhood dream.
“I’m taking a cinematography class right now,” he said.
This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 9:57 AM.
