Rashid Talukder

Rashid Talukder
Born	24 October 1939 Baj Baj, Pargana, British India
Died	Dhaka, Bangladesh
Resting place	Azimpur Graveyard, Dhaka
Nationality	Bangladeshi
Occupation	Photojournalist
Employer	The Daily Ittefaq
Organization	founder of the Bangladesh Photo Journalists' Association
Known for	photographs of Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971
Children	one son and two daughters

Rashid Talukder (Bengali: রশীদ তালুকদার; 24 October 1939 – 25 October 2011) was a noted Bangladeshi photojournalist for The Daily Ittefaq, most known for capturing some the defining images of the atrocities during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.

Talukder was a founder of the Bangladesh Photo Journalists' Association. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chobi Mela, an international photography festival in Dhaka, in 2006, and the 2010 'Pioneer Photographer Award' given by the National Geographic.

Early life and education

Born 24 October 1939 in Baj Baj, near Calcutta (now Kolkata) in Pargana (now 24 Parganas), British India (now in West Bengal, India). He developed an interest in photography while still at school, and by the time he reached class 8 in 1945, he started working in the darkroom.

Career

Talukdar started his career in 1962, as a press photographer with The Sangbad in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After working here for a few years, he joined the The Daily Ittefaq, where he worked for 29 years as a photojournalist and during his career he most notably shot the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 against Pakistan and the photograph of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivering his historic speech on 7 March 1971. As he feared for his safety, many of his photographs were not published until 1993 when he was approached by the The Daily Star. Few photographers were able to film and publish an account of the events. Outside of Bangladesh, Horst Faas and Michel Laurent of the Associated Press won a Pulitzer Prize for best spot news photography in 1972, which appeared in a print as "Death in Dacca".

He was the founder of the Bangladesh Photo Journalists' Association, and also a member of advisory councils of photographic organisations like Bangladesh Photographic Society. In 2006, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions of photography at the Chobi Mela, an international photography festival in Dhaka, and in 2010 he became the first Bangladeshi photographer to have won prestigious 'Pioneer Photographer Award' in 2010, part of 'All Roads Photography Programme' of the National Geographic.

List of notable photographs

• A photograph of a speech given by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 7 March 1971.

Death

He died on 25 October 2011 at a Dhaka hospital, after a brief illness at the age of 72, and was survived by one son and two daughters. His death was condoled both by the President and the Prime Minister. As per his wishes he was buried next to his wife at the Azimpur graveyard in Dhaka.

Exhibits

• Exhibit: "Bangladesh 1971," Side Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (September–October 2008).
• Exhibit: "Where Three Dreams Cross," Whitechapel Gallery in London, UK (January–April 2010.

External links

NPR: Spotlight On Rashid Talukder, Pioneering Bangladeshi Photographer