Rob Taggart wins prestigious lifetime pictures award

Guild chairman Alan Sparrow presented Rob, 71, with the special chairman’s award at a black-tie dinner for some 250 guests at Church House in Westminster, London, on April 2. 

Rob joined Reuters in Brussels in 1985 on the first day of its News Pictures service, after the company acquired UPI’s non-U.S. business. Starting as a pictures editor/photographer he rose to become Asia Pacific photo editor in 1995, based in Hong Kong and then Singapore, in one of the highlights of a five-decades-long career. 

He covered the build-up to the Gulf War, Romania’s revolution, Kurdish refugees fleeing Iraq, the Live Aid Concert, Olympics, Rugby World Cups, Royal tours and weddings, Wimbledon and UK election campaigns, among many other headliners. 

He moved to Associated Press in London in 2001 as Picture Editor for Europe, Middle East and Africa in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and led the Iraq War operation that followed. AP won a Pulitzer Prize for its photo coverage of the war. He later became Director of Commercial Operations at AP. 

Retirement in 2018 did nothing to curb his passion for photography. In 2021 he visited his home town of Auckland to cover the sixth America's Cup for Alamy, Shutterstock, Sipa Press in France and La Presse in Italy.  ■