The Society of Professional Journalists tabbed Lucas Duarte, a senior photographer with The Reporter, as the College Photojournalist of the Year at the Sunshine State Awards on Aug. 29 at ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale.
Recognition was given to the best professional, college and high school journalists in Florida. The contest includes categories ranging from reporting, photography and podcasts.
“This award is a consequence of my hard work everyday,” Duarte said.“I think it shows my work, my dedication and effort.”
The portfolio Duarte submitted for the competition was The Act of Noticing. It concentrates on various protests including No Kings in Miami and Save Our Children in New York City.
Duarte was gifted his first camera—a point and shoot—by his grandmother in Brazil when he was 5. But the camera that made him delve deeper into photography was a Nikon D5200 that his mom gave him when he was 14.
A year earlier, Duarte moved with his family from São Paulo to North Beach. In 2022, he graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School. Eight months later he started at North Campus, studying film in the School of Entertainment & Design Technology.
In 2025, after undergoing knee surgery, he transferred to Wolfson Campus and changed his major to photography to focus on documenting impactful stories.
That same year he joined The Reporter.
For the past year, he has covered the Miami Open, the Film Festival, Art Basel, Book Fair and taken countless portraits of students, professors and staff at the College while traveling to journalism conferences in New York City and New Orleans.
In March, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists chapter at Florida International University tabbed Duarte as the winner in the Best Photo Slide Show category in the Voces Del Periodismo contest. The winning entries were taken in October of 2025 during a No Kings protest in downtown Miami.
“The Reporter changes lives,” Duarte said. “This journey with The Reporter, after a year, I learned a lot, not just photography, but also about journalism.”
Duarte hopes to continue building a career as a photojournalist and use photography as a means to tell stories about the community.
“Photography became a part of me,” Duarte said. “ It gave me a kind of freedom to express myself.”
