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Shahidul Alam[1] was born in 1955 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He studied and taught chemistry in London where he obtained a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) from the University of London.[1]
He started photography in 1980 and was awarded the Harvey Harris Trophy for being judged the best photographer of the year by the London Arts Council in 1983. He became the president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society where he served for three terms.
In 1989 he set up Drik picture library and Pathshala: South Asian Institute of Photography[2]. He is also a director of Chobi Mela[3], the festival of photography in Asia.[4][2] Jury member of numerous competitions including World Press Photo where he has been a judge on four occasions, [5] he was the first person of colour to chair the international jury in World Press Photo history.
Awarded the Andrea Frank Foundation Award and the Howard Chapnick Award in 1998 he has also been awarded the Honorary Fellowships of the Bangladesh Photographic Society and later, the Royal Photographic Society in 2001, for his contribution to photography.
He is on the advisory board for the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and the National Geographic Society. He is visiting professor of Sunderland University in the UK and Regent's Lecturer at UCLA in the USA. Alam is the founder chairman of Majority World[6], a global community interest initiative formed to provide a platform for indigenous photographers, photographic agencies and image collections from the majority world to gain access to global image markets.
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