Reza is one of the best-known photojournalists on the international scene. Forced into exile from Iran in 1981, Reza lives in Paris and has been traveling the world for 30 years, bearing witness to the wounds and the joys of all those whose paths he intersects on his journeys.
Photojournalist for National Geographic since 1991, Reza has crisscrossed more than 100 countries, photographing conflicts, revolutions and human catastrophes. His eyewitness testimony has been distributed through international media (National Geographic, Time Magazine, Stern, Newsweek, El Pais, Paris-Match, GĂ©o, etc.), but also in books, exhibitions and documentaries by his own agency, Webistan, created in 1992.
In 1983 Reza initiated photographic training programs in Pakistani refugee camps. This was the beginning of his personal voluntary involvement, leading him to found the NGO Ainaworld in 2001. Ainaworld is committed to children’s education and training women for communication and information jobs - today in Afghanistan, tomorrow in many other countries. After his Memories of Exile exhibition at the Carrousel du Louvre in 1998, he shared his humanitarian vision of the world through his exhibition Crossing Destinies, on the railings of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris in 2003. Since 2006 he has been showing the worldwide exhibition One World, One Tribe. Finally, the exhibition War + Peace - presented at the Caen Memorial Museum in 2009 - was the occasion for a retrospective of his work.
Author of 23 books, winner of a WorldPress Photo award, decorated with the Medal of Knight of the National Order of Merit, the “Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service to Journalism”, winner of a “Lucy Award”, granted the title “Doctor Honoris Causa” by the American University of Paris and then an “Infinity Award” by the ICP in New York in 2010, Reza bears witness to capturing the turmoil of the world.