Adnan Abidi is an Indian photographer based in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

. He has been part of three Pulitzer Prize-winning packages for photography as part of ''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

''' photography team.

Early life and Inspiration

Adnan's childhood and early experiences helped him in realizing his ever-lasting passion for photography. When he was 11, he was a member of a mobile van library and used to borrow comic books. One day, he picked up a picture postcard book by the veteran Indian photographer S. Paul, and at that moment he felt intrigued by photography. He never returned the book and pestered his father to buy him a camera instead- a Yashica point. Adnan has never taken formal training but learned by trial and error under the guidance of senior photographers. During his first job with a local newswire agency, he was never issued a full roll of film. Instead, he had shot and completed assignments in the leftover film with 15-20 frames. Adnan, however, always saw the positive. He admits that the best part of using left-over film was 'getting into the habit of being selective'.

Work

Adnan started his career as a darkroom assistant in 1997. He worked at Pan-Asia News Agency, Indo Photo News, and

Press Trust of India The Press Trust of India Ltd., commonly known as PTI, is the largest news agency in India. It is headquartered in New Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 500 Indian newspapers. It has over 500 full-time employees , including abo ...

. Eventually, he started working for

as a stringer and was later given a staff position. He has captured several challenging situations over the course of his career, including 1999 Kandahar hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC814,

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...

2005 Kashmir earthquake The 2005 Kashmir earthquake occurred at on 8 October in Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir. It was centred near the city of Muzaffarabad, and also affected nearby Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and some areas of Indian-administered Jammu and ...

, the 2011–2012 Maldives political crisis, 2013 Cyclone Phailin in Orissa,

2015 Nepal earthquake The April 2015 Nepal earthquake (also known as the Gorkha earthquake) killed 8,964 people and injured 21,952 more. It occurred at on Saturday, 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8Moment magnitude scale, Mw or 8.1Surface wave magnitude, Ms an ...

and the 2016 Dhaka attack.

Awards

In 2017, Abidi covered the exodus of Rohingyas and he and his colleague

Danish Siddiqui Danish Siddiqui (19 May 1983 – 16 July 2021) was an Indian photojournalist based in Delhi, who used to lead the national Reuters multimedia team and was Chief Photographer India. He received his first 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photogra ...

became the first Indians to win a

Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or phot ...

as part of the photography staff of Reuters. He won the 2020

Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. From 2000 it has used the "breaking news" name but it is considered a continuation of the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photogr ...

for his coverage of the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. In 2022, Abidi's work was part of another Pulitzer Prize-winning photography package which covered the COVID-19 pandemic in India, increasing his tally to three Pulitzer Prizes. In 2022 Abidi’s work titled ‘Covid Horror in Delhi’ won NPPA Best of Photojournalism first place in the Breaking News Story category.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abidi, Adnan Living people Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography winners Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners Indian photojournalists Photographers from Delhi 21st-century Indian Muslims Reuters people Year of birth missing (living people)