ABDUL AZIZ is a freelance photojournalist, filmmaker, and serial entrepreneur. For nearly two decades, he has worked to document conflict, war, social issues and culture spanning the globe from the Middle East and Africa to the far reaches of the Himalayas. His photos have been published by opinion leading news agencies worldwide. Most recently his work has focused on the rise of white nationalism in the United States and the removal of Confederate monuments in cities at the center of the debate, such as New Orleans and Charlottesville. Aziz is the 2021 recipient of The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities' Documentary Photographer of the Year Award, which recognizes photographers whose work captures Louisiana’s history, culture, and/or peoples. With past experience working in Somalia and the Gaza Strip, Aziz has more recently trained his lens on the modern-day struggle for civil rights and racial justice in Louisiana. His photos of the tense scenes that accompanied the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans in 2017 and of Black Lives Matter protests across the state in the last three years document an often unflattering—but always critically important—moment in contemporary Louisiana life.
