Legendary photographer FE Chaudhry passes away
March 16, 2013
LAHORE: FE Chaudhry, the longest living veteran photographer of Pakistan Movement took his last breath Friday, March 15, which incidentally happened to be his birthday as well, he was 104 years old.
A kind, widely respected and loved figure, affectionately known as ‘Chacha’ in the journalist community, FE Chaudhry was credited to have introduced innovative features to photojournalism, such as cricket action photography, pictorial and artistic studies of birds and animals, photographs of natural and cultural scenes, along with a host of others which have become standard items of photojournalism today. He was Pakistan’s first serious, full-time press photographer who worked freelance until he was snapped up by Mian Iftikharuddin soon after The Pakistan Times began publishing in 1947.
‘Chacha’, proud father of the 1965 war hero Cecil Chaudhry, stayed with the newspaper almost until its closure, through good times and bad, working in his own inimitable style and taking pictures, many of which have come to form the pictorial history of Pakistan.
He was born on March 15, 1909 to a Christian Rajput family in Saharanpur, India. According to Khalid Butt, writing in an English daily, he was named Faustin Elmer by his parents. His family moved to Jhelum, when Fazal Elahi was a young boy and he had his early education at Mission High School Dalwal, Jhelum and later graduated from FC College, Lahore.
Photography was his first love, which he picked up as a hobby. In those days photography was a cumbersome affair. In his later years, ‘Chacha’ started working as a freelance photographer while serving as a science teacher at St Anthony’s High School, Lahore in 1934.
A kind, widely respected and loved figure, affectionately known as ‘Chacha’ in the journalist community, FE Chaudhry was credited to have introduced innovative features to photojournalism, such as cricket action photography, pictorial and artistic studies of birds and animals, photographs of natural and cultural scenes, along with a host of others which have become standard items of photojournalism today. He was Pakistan’s first serious, full-time press photographer who worked freelance until he was snapped up by Mian Iftikharuddin soon after The Pakistan Times began publishing in 1947.
‘Chacha’, proud father of the 1965 war hero Cecil Chaudhry, stayed with the newspaper almost until its closure, through good times and bad, working in his own inimitable style and taking pictures, many of which have come to form the pictorial history of Pakistan.
He was born on March 15, 1909 to a Christian Rajput family in Saharanpur, India. According to Khalid Butt, writing in an English daily, he was named Faustin Elmer by his parents. His family moved to Jhelum, when Fazal Elahi was a young boy and he had his early education at Mission High School Dalwal, Jhelum and later graduated from FC College, Lahore.
Photography was his first love, which he picked up as a hobby. In those days photography was a cumbersome affair. In his later years, ‘Chacha’ started working as a freelance photographer while serving as a science teacher at St Anthony’s High School, Lahore in 1934.
