Farzana Wahidy is an award-winning Afghan documentary photographer – best known for her photographs of women and girls in Afghanistan. She has been documenting the life of Afghan women for nearly two- decade. Wahidy, was the first female photographer in Afghanistan to work with international media agencies.
Wahidy was born in Kandahar in 1984 and moved to Kabul at the age of six. She attended school during the Afghan civil war, and continued her education in an underground school during the Taliban regime. After their defeat, Wahidy completed high school, then enrolled in a two-year program with AINA Photojournalism Institute. In 2004, she began working as a photographer for Agence-France Presse and later joined the Associated Press.
In 2007,Wahidy received a full scholarship for the two-year Photojournalism Program at Loyalist College in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, graduating on the Dean’s List in 2009. Since 2008 Wahidy has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants from organizations such as the Open Society Institute, National Geographic All Roads Film and Photography Program, University of Missouri and Mountain Film for her photography work. In 2016,Wahidy received the 2016 Premier’s Award for Creative Arts and Design in Ontario Canada. The Premier’s Awards recognize outstanding college graduates who work to improve the social and economic well-being of those in their communities and around the world after she established the Afghanistan Photographers Association.
