Internationally celebrated photo guru, JD Okhai Ojeikere, is dead. He died last night, according to a family friend, the writer Uzor Maxim Uzoatu.

Lamenting Ojeikere’s death, Uzoatu said this morning on Facebook that he was informed of the sad development by the daughter Nike Ojeikere. He described the news as being “quite devastating,” mourning “our great dad, the immortal photography pathfinder Pa JD Okhai Ojeikere.”

As acknowledged in his Wikipedia biography, Ojeikere “is known for his work with unique hairstyles found in Nigeria.”

Also known as Ovbiomu-Emai, Pa Ojeikere was born in 1930 in a rural South Western Nigeria village and started out as a darkroom assistant in 1954 at the Ministry of Information in Ibadan. After Nigeria gained its independence in 1960, Ojeikere pursued his first job. In 1951 he became a studio photographer, under Steve Rhodes, for Television House Ibadan. In 1963 till 1975 Ojeikere the next step in his career began in publicity where he worked at West Africa Publicity in Lagos. During his time in publicity, specifically in the year 1967, he joined the Nigerian Arts Council. In 1968 he began one of his largest curations where he documented Nigerian hairstyles. This was a trademark of Ojeikere as he had a thousand pictures of different African women hair.

Pa Ojeikere lived and worked in the Ketu area of Lagos until his death.

•Photo shows late JD Okhai Ojeikere.