Abul Kalam Azad (photographer)

Abul Kalam Azad
Abul Kalam Azad, Casa, Himalayas, 2012
Born	(1964-09-24) 24 September 1964 (age 53) Kerala, India
Nationality	Indian
Occupation	Photographer

Abul Kalam Azad (born 24 September 1964) is a noted contemporary Indian photographer. Abul's photographic works are predominantly autobiographical and expose the areas of politics, culture, contemporary history, gender and eroticism. His works attempts a re-reading of contemporary Indian history - the history in which ordinary people are absent and mainly provided by beautiful images and icons. Abul's works makes an active intervention in the common illustrative discourse of this history. Using the same tool, photography, that chisels history out of a block of ‘real’ human experiences, Abul makes a parody of it. 'Overall, the corpus of Azad’s work can be seen to have a thrust towards an archive of local micro-history at the level of personal memory and in that sense, his works add up to a kind of social anthropology of his land and its people, though not necessarily in the line of tradition of the objective documentary'. Abul Kalam Azad is the visionary behind EtP Ekalokam Trust for Photography, a Trust dedicated to preserving and promoting contemporary Photography. He is also the Director of Project 365, a public photo art project that collectively creates and preserves photographic visuals of the fast changing culture and lifestyle of ancient Tamilakam. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Photo Mail online magazine.

Abul was born in Kerala (24 September 1964) to a migrant family from Tamil Nadu and was brought up in Mattancherry, the historical heart of Kochi. Abul's talents as a photographer was evident from childhood and he joined as an apprentice in a hometown studio to develop his skills. During the 1980s he set up 'Zen studio' at Mattancherry and started working with many prominent news agencies, newspapers, and in periodicals in India and Abroad. He moved to Delhi in the year 1990 and worked as a photo-journalist with Press Trust of India (1990-1996), New Delhi Bureau. During this time he traveled for further studies to Europe. He was supported by various scholarships, one of which was granted to him by the French Government. He also received a Charles Wallace Award (fellowship 1995), UK. He left the promising photo-journalist career to follow his passion 'art photography'. His first exhibition 'Frontier People' was held at Kerala Kaladeepam in the year 1994. His first National level exhibition 'Violence Undone' was held in Max Muller Bhavan, New Delhi in the year 1996. Since then, Abul's work has been exhibited widely in India and Abroad.