When a longtime dictatorship in Sudan was overthrown by a coup and the military took control of the government, protesters gathered on the outskirts of the capital, Khartoum, to call for civilian rule.

With the capital on high alert with blackouts imposed and the internet shut off, a young man stepped out into the center of the crowd and started reciting a poem.

Engrossed in the moment in June last year, Yasuyoshi Chiba, chief photographer at the Agence France-Presse’s Nairobi bureau, took a photo.

A countless number of mobile phones illuminated the young man, while the crowd applauded and cheered him on to stage their “revolution.”

The man’s words sounded full of spirit, “like arrows whizzing through the air,” Chiba, 49, recalled in an online interview.

“Young people were trying to build their future with their own hands. Their passion was still aflame.”

For his inspirational shot, titled “Straight Voice,” Chiba won the top World Press Photo of the Year award at the prestigious World Press Photo Contest in April.

He became the first Japanese photographer to win the top award in 41 years. There are only three other Japanese winners, including Kyoichi Sawada, known for his photography of the Vietnam War.

“We see this young person, who is not shooting, who is not throwing a stone, but reciting a poem,” said Lekgetho Makola, chair of the 2020 Photo Contest jury, at the awards ceremony. “It’s acknowledging, but also voicing a sense of hope.”

Chiba has won two other World Press Photo Contest awards, the first in 2009 and again in 2012. This year, 4,282 photojournalists from 125 countries and regions entered the contest.

Chiba said he was “lucky” to win the top award, but his wife, Akiko, 44, said: “It is his consistent approach to try to capture the positive aspects of people placed in extreme conditions. I’m sure he never stopped looking for such a scene until he found it.”

Indeed, Chiba had been driving around the city at night for many days when he came across the gathering of protesters.

Chiba learned photography at an arts college. In 1995, before he joined The Asahi Shimbun, he went to an area stricken by the Great Hanshin Earthquake as a volunteer aid worker.

He remembers a man who had been driving off members of the media. But he bought a photo book documenting the disaster before anyone else and was absorbed in it.

“I realized how important it was to keep records,” Chiba said. “I always remember how he was like when I feel hesitant and discouraged to see a sad and painful sight.”

Koichiro Yoshida, 57, who was Chiba’s supervisor at The Asahi Shimbun, remembers how Chiba lived up to his code of professionalism when he was assigned to cover firefly squid fishing in Toyama Bay, which is an annual spring tradition for the newspaper’s photographers.

Even though Yoshida approved his photos, Chiba wasn’t happy with his pictures and got on a fishing boat in the early hours of the morning for a week for retakes.

“He hates stereotypes, and he is uncompromisingly determined when it comes to lighting, positioning and subjects. Once he concentrated, he displayed an incredible ability,” Yoshida recalled.

Chiba left The Asahi Shimbun in 2007 and went to Kenya as a freelance photographer.

When a presidential election was held half a year later, he saw local residents ripping a large poster of the incumbent president during a speech made in a ghetto by an opposition candidate.

When he talked to photographers covering the scene, Chiba found that they represented every other media organization except AFP, one of the three major news agencies in the world.

Chiba immediately visited its office to pitch his photos.

Blessed with a lucky streak, he became an official staff member in 2011.

When Chiba covers a new subject matter, he sets himself a goal.

When he covered the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, he was determined to collect stories from survivors. He talked with disaster victims and included their names in the captions.

Chiba won an award at the World Press Photo Contest for his series of pictures including those of a man searching for his missing family, a mother who found her daughter’s diploma, and a father and his son standing on the seashore where their family was swept away.

Although Chiba has finally reached the pinnacle of photojournalism, he remains calm and focused. He wants to return to Japan some day to present his home country to the world.

“There are things only I can capture,” Chiba said.