Mic­ah James is just 16 years old and has man­aged to ac­com­plish a his­toric feat.

Mic­ah has be­come the youngest ever win­ner of Na­tion­al Pho­to­graph of the year in the Pho­to­ma­nia com­pe­ti­tion put out by the T&T Pho­to­graph­ic So­ci­ety.

But the teen, who de­scribed his win as “sur­re­al” yet hum­bling said it’s his moth­er and not him who de­serves all the praise.

On Wednes­day the Art So­ci­ety of T&T in Port-of-Spain made the an­nounce­ment at the Prize Giv­ing and Ex­hi­bi­tion Open­ing Night.

In ad­di­tion to the Na­tion­al Pho­to­graph Award, James al­so copped third place Un­der 18 Dig­i­tal Art, sec­ond place Na­ture, sec­ond place Land­scape, first place Na­ture and first place Street and Pho­to­jour­nal­ism.

James, who is a Form Five pupil of St Joseph’s Col­lege in St Joseph, spoke with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view and said he won in the Open Cat­e­go­ry last year, his first-time en­ter­ing and de­cid­ed to en­ter again this year.

He cred­it­ed his moth­er’s sup­port for his win.

“My moth­er was the one who en­cour­aged me to en­ter and hav­ing won its a bit over­whelm­ing.”

Hav­ing got­ten the “Eye of Pho­tog­ra­phy” nat­u­ral­ly from his moth­er he be­lieves he re­mem­bered tak­ing his first pro­fes­sion­al pho­to at the age of six with his moth­er’s cam­era.

In 2016, James’ moth­er, Melis­sa Bal­lack-James bought him his first pro­fes­sion­al cam­era.

“My moth­er is my dri­ving force in all this and my in­spi­ra­tion and I thank her for her con­tin­ued sup­port and for be­liev­ing in me, “ James said.

Bal­lack-James who ex­pressed much pride in her son’s achieve­ments re­called that she loved pho­tog­ra­phy as a teenag­er but nev­er was pushed to pur­sue it, “In those days par­ents nev­er pushed you to do things you like and for Mic­ah he start­ed off in pri­ma­ry school he used to use my lit­tle cam­era on my phone and al­so his grand­moth­er’s point and shoot cam­era un­til a few years ago we bought him a pho­tog­ra­phy cam­era and he start­ed to take pro­fes­sion­al pic­tures.”

James, the old­est of four chil­dren, had some ad­vice for teenagers, about pur­su­ing their dreams.

He said, “Most chil­dren want to just fit in but you have to go ahead and do what you like, what you love and par­ents must sup­port them and help them to achieve their goals.”

James ex­plained that pho­tog­ra­phy is a hob­by as he is in­tend­ed to pur­sue stud­ies to be­come a qual­i­fied pi­lot - his dream ca­reer.