Hashem Muhammad al Baghdadi

Hashem Muhammad al-Baghdadi was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1917. He was interested in photography from a young age, and learned the art from a Jewish photographer named Nissan, who had a studio near his brother's shop. He bought his first camera, a Kodak box, in 1947, and began taking pictures of the street life, plants, and people of Baghdad. He pursued a career in photography in the 1950s, when he joined the Iraq Petroleum Company as a trainee under the British photographer Jack Percival. He learned various aspects of photography, including aerial work, and took pictures for the company's Arabic-language magazine, Ahl al-Naf [People of Oil]. He also worked as a freelance photographer for various newspapers and magazines, such as al-Iraq, al-Zaman, and al-Musawwar. He became the head of the photography department at the Ministry of Culture in 1960, and hired and trained many young photographers. He traveled across Iraq, documenting the ancient monuments, the urban development, the rural scenes, and the diverse communities of the country. He captured the beauty, the complexity, and the contradictions of Iraqi society during a period of rapid change and modernization. He also experimented with different techniques and styles, such as abstract photography and photomontage. He stopped taking photographs in the late 1970s, due to the political repression and censorship under Saddam Hussein's regime. He kept his archive of more than 10,000 negatives hidden in his home, fearing that they would be confiscated or destroyed. He lived in isolation and obscurity for decades, until his work was rediscovered and exhibited in 2015 by the Arab Image Foundation and the Ruya Foundation. He received international recognition and acclaim for his photographs, which were praised as a unique and invaluable record of Iraq's history and culture. He died in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1973, at the age of 56. He is regarded as the father of Iraqi photography and one of the most influential Arab photographers of the 20th century.