photojournalist Farid Khayrulin

Farid Khayrulin is one of Azerbaijan’s most distinguished photojournalists and advertising photographers. A member of the Union of Journalists of Azerbaijan and of the creative union ‘Photographers of Azerbaijan’, holder of the G. Zardabi award and the first winner of the Humay award, he has also received the Golden Argus award and awards from numerous national and international exhibitions.

Throughout his career, Farid Khayrulin’s photos have chronicled the history of our country. Having established himself as a photojournalist during the Soviet era, he was to be found at the very center of the stormy events which swept Azerbaijan during the perestroika years. He provided photo coverage of numerous foreign trips made by Azeri political leaders and the most important international events in various countries around the world.

Over the past few years, he has been actively involved in photography for the world of professional advertising, attending training courses run by Igor Sakharov, one of Europe's leading photographers in the field. In 2004, Farid Khayrulin started up a professional digital studio, FGF, which is now firmly established at the forefront of professional advertising photography in Azerbaijan.

Farid Khayrulin is renowned as a professional photographer equal to any assignment, no matter how challenging or delicate.

The name that Farid Khayrulin, a renowned photojournalist, chose for his current exhibition, hosted at the gallery of the Azerbaijan Museum Center, is “Baku – yesterday and today”. The exhibition includes about 100 photos, and the meaning of the word “yesterday” is far from "distant past”. Only two pictures are really old: a panorama of the Baku of 1982 and a photo taken in 2001 – it, too, appears so antique compared to the drastically different Baku of today. And this – the reflection of the rapid pace of the Baku construction boom – is one of the goals of this exhibition.

The artist voices his protest against the fact that in the very center of our capital there still remain the narrow streets where space is so limited. This is particularly obvious in a number of photographs of dark narrow dead-end streets, only too common in the old quarters. People should not live like this - says the artist ...>>>