Rena Effendi facts for kids
Rena Effendi (born in 1977) is a talented photographer from Azerbaijan. She works as a freelance photographer, which means she takes pictures for different clients and projects. Her photos often show important topics like the environment, how people live after big conflicts, how the oil industry affects communities, and differences in society.
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About Rena Effendi
Rena Effendi was born in 1977 in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan. She went to the Azerbaijan State Institute of Languages where she studied linguistics. Linguistics is the study of language.
How She Became a Photographer
Rena started taking photos in 2001. By 2005, she decided to become a full-time photographer. Before that, she worked as an Economic Development Specialist for the United States Agency for International Development in Baku.
Her first photo book was called Pipe Dreams. This book looked at how the oil industry changed the lives of everyday people. She focused on people living along the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline in Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. Rena first got a job from BP, a big oil company, to take promotional photos. While working, she noticed that only a small number of people in her country were truly benefiting from the oil boom. Over six years, her work on this topic grew into the book Pipe Dreams.
Other Photo Projects
Rena Effendi has worked on many other interesting photo projects. She took pictures in Chernobyl after the terrible nuclear accident in 1986. She also photographed transgender people in Istanbul and showed village life in Khinalug. Her work also covered the Russia–Georgia war in 2008. She photographed the lives of young people in cities like Tehran, Moscow, and Cairo.
In 2010, she published a book called Chernobyl: Still Life in the Zone. In this book, she chose to show the daily lives of people living in the area, rather than just focusing on the disaster itself.
Where Her Work Has Been Seen
Rena Effendi's photographs have been featured in many famous magazines and newspapers around the world. These include the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, Financial Times, Time Magazine, National Geographic, Marie Claire, Courrier International, Le Monde, and L'Uomo Vogue.
Her amazing work has also been displayed in art galleries and exhibitions. You could see her photos at the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Aperture Gallery in New York, Istanbul Modern, the Venice Biennial, and Art Basel.
Awards and Recognition
Rena Effendi has received many awards for her photography. She won the Fifty Crows Documentary Award, the Mario Giacomelli Memorial Award, and the Getty Images Editorial Grant.
In 2008, National Geographic Magazine gave her an All Roads Photography Award. The next year, in 2009, she received the Young Photographer in the Caucasus Award. In 2011, she was honored with a Prince Claus Award. She also won 3rd prize in the Observed Portraits category at the 2014 World Press Photo Contest in Amsterdam, Netherlands, for her work titled "Transylvania: Built on Grass".
