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When Renee Nowytarger was a little girl, she liked to view the world through a lens. She remembers borrowing her dad’s camera from his cupboard and roaming around their property north of Sydney in Oxford Falls, taking photos for the school magazine. That was in the days of black-and-white film when the easiest way to breathe life into your shots was to process them in your own makeshift dark room. It proved a disciplined way to learn the ropes. Today, Renee, 36, is living her photojournalist dream and proving her mettle in a male-dominated industry. She recently scooped her fourth Walkley Award as Nikon-Walkley Press Photographer of the Year 2009 (she’s also a four-time finalist) but it’s not the trophies that float her boat. Renee thrives on working with people and telling their story.

Until printing press technology caught up in 1880, photojournalism was a laborious process. It involved a newsworthy photograph being reinterpreted as an illustration with wood engravings. Naturally, the results were a little hazy and often erroneous. Photojournalism has since developed into a crucial spoke in the news wheel thanks to gutsy newshounds like Sydney lass Renee Nowytarger, who work at breathless speed and with unerring precision (no hazy imagery here). Everything from wireless connectivity to digital cameras, up-to-the-minute news sites, iPhones, and social media like YouTube and TwitPics help images, words and sound bites reach audiences swiftly, preferably as the event is unfolding.

While it is increasingly challenging for journalists to keep pace with technology and editorial demand (Renee explains, these days you need diverse multimedia skills so you can shoot and edit both stills and video footage), the true test is to remember that at the heart of ‘news’ are people and their stories. This is something Renee has never lost sight of and is the reason she’s laden with a bunch of Walkley Awards and other industry accolades. Walkley judges describe her style as empathetic, versatile, intimate and full of integrity. She is said to have a gift for drawing out her subjects’ dignity. As a photojournalist for The Australian, Renee covers weighty issues at home and around the globe, such as the Bali bombings, the tsunami in Aceh, the Tampa crisis in Nauru, the Federal Government’s Northern Territory intervention and the effects of Philippines’ poverty on its people.

One of the images that helped Renee win her latest Walkley shows a close-up of Aboriginal elder, Essina Sullivan. The caption explains, “Essina Sullivan, 33, is a woman from the era of the Stolen Generation. Tears of heartache flowed from her eyes as she spoke of being removed from her family in northern NSW at the age of two. It’s her last memory of her grandmother, who was beating her hand on the boot of the car that removed Sullivan from her family”. Renee recalls the moment she shot Essina’s photo in Lightning Ridge in northern New South Wales. “Essina was on the peripheral of this meeting about DOCS (Department of Community Services) but she stood up and told the community what she’d been through. Later on she was talking to me when I was photographing her and she was crying. I stopped taking shots because I didn’t want her to be upset but she didn’t want me to stop. She had the courage to talk and she wanted people to know what had happened to her. I was purely the vessel to tell people her story.”

Renee says she appreciated her storytelling role early on in her career. “I wanted to get into photojournalism because I thought it was important that people knew what was going on in their community. I’m not much of a writer, so this is my way of telling people what is going on around them through an image rather than words.” After completing high school, Renee cut her teeth on newspapers around Sydney. “I would basically work anywhere,” she laughs. “I went to the Chinese Independent Daily, The Irish Times, The Jewish News – any newspaper that would have me. And I think I worked for free for most of them just so I could get something published.”

Eventually she scored a cadetship at the Manly Daily. It was sink or swim but she managed to do laps and somersaults. “It was absolutely brilliant,” Renee gushes of her experience at the community paper. “You do sports, courts, news, and you can do portraits, features – you’re doing five jobs a day or more with a short time frame. So you’re really taught you have to get it done.”

Her advice to new recruits is to give it everything and to become very handy in the multimedia space. “It’s not easy,” Renee admits. “It’s very difficult now to be a photojournalist. But just go with your heart and if you love it, keep doing it. That’s all you can do.”

For inspiration, Renee looks to photojournalist gurus like Paris-based, Brazilian-born Sebastian Salgado. “I love his work. I always have. It’s beautiful and it’s about the people, just in the way they are posed or how their bodies move to tell a story.” The work of award-winning Australian Dave Gray also stirs her soul. “He has such enthusiasm for the work and it has rubbed off on me. I am so fortunate to be constantly surrounded by passionate photographers. They make you passionate as well. You egg each other on.”

The Nikon Walkley Photographic Awards are on show at Brisbane Powerhouse until February 28. Visit www.brisbanepowerhouse.org.

Interview by Frances Frangenheim