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Mohamed Amin was a Kenyan photojournalist, who also worked as a television camera operator. He was mostly known for his television reports of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia. Amin contributed news footage to major television networks worldwide, including British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Independent Television Network (ITN), Granada, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), among others.
Background
Mohamed Amin was born on August 29, 1943, in Eastleigh, Nairobi, Kenya. He was the second of seven children, raised by Muslim parents, Sadar Mohamed and Azmat (Bibi) Mohamed, who had emigrated from the Punjab in 1927. Mohamed's father, Sardar Mohamed, found work on the railway building Kenya's "lunatic line" from Mombasa to Lake Victoria, while his mother, Azmat (Bibi) Mohamed, set about making a home for the family in their new country. In the early 1950's, Sardar was posted to Dar es Salaam in then-British-ruled Tanganyika, now Tanzania, where the family of nine squeezed into a four bedroom bungalow, owned by the railway.
Education
Mohamed bought his first camera, a Box Brownie, at the age of eleven, after years of hoarding pennies to save for the 40-shilling price tag. He began learning how to shoot images, while still at school, joining the photographic club and developing his photos in a stairwell dark room. During those years, he honed not only his photographic skills, but also his business savvy, selling snaps of school activities and splitting the profits 50/50 with his subjects.
Career
Mohamed Amin was an important figure in the world of African and international photojournalism. Beginning his career in 1958, he also served as a television camera operator during the early 1960's and won a British Television Award for his work in this position later in the decade. In 1963, Amin founded and became the chief executive of Camerapix Publishing, holding this post until his death. He continued his career in photojournalism, however, and became internationally famous during the mid-1980's for his television coverage of the Ethiopian famine. This coverage garnered Amin several honors.
In addition, from 1966 till 1996, he acted as an African bureau head at Visnews (television news agency). Moreover, between 1978 and 1983, Mohamed held a post of a chair of the Foreign Correspondents' Association of East Africa.
During his career as a photojournalist, Amin was not just active in Africa, but also in the Middle East. He covered the Palestinian Black September uprising to seize control of Jordan in September 1970. He was able to move among the Palestinian forces, where Western journalists could not. In 1991, Mohamed lost his left arm during an ammunition dump explosion in Ethiopia during the Ethiopian Civil War. However, he continued his photographic work after that accident.
Amin also wrote and contributed to many books. Among his solo book efforts is 1983’s "Cradle of Mankind". Packed with Amin’s own photographs, the book concerns the region of Africa’s Great Rift Valley, which many anthropologists think is the place, where mankind’s first humanoid ancestors flourished. The book shows its readers what this region is like today, from its wildlife to the nomadic desert tribesmen, whose future there is uncertain.
Amin also had a children’s book to his credit — 1985’s "We Live in Pakistan". He had spent a fair amount of time in the title country as a photojournalist, and the nation bestowed its second-highest civilian honor upon him, the Order of the Tamgah-i-Imtiaz. Amin also collaborated with others on books for adults about some of Pakistan’s cities — Lahore and Karachi. "We Live in Pakistan" is one title of a children’s series about many foreign lands.
Amin co-edited 1986’s "Kenya" with John Eames. A guide for tourists traveling to Kenya, it takes a regional approach and discusses at length safaris, wildlife parks and popular sports.
Tragically, Amin was a passenger on the Ethiopian plane, that crashed, following a hijacking in November, 1996. ET-AIZ broke into pieces, and, as Amin was standing, his body hit the airplane wall, causing his death. His colleague, a journalist Brian Tetley, also did not survive the crash.
Mohamed Amin was a well-known news photographer and cameraman, whose television reports of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia attracted worldwide attention and prompted a massive outpouring of relief, including the Live Aid concert. Also, earlier in his career, in the 1970's, he became one of the most relied-upon African news photographers, reporting on wars and coups all through the continent, and his pictures were often used by Western news media.
Moreover, Mohamed contributed exclusive photos of the fall of Idi Amin and of Mengistu Haile Mariam, and was an author of numerous books, including "Journey Through Pakistan", and covered various themes, like East African Wildlife and the Uganda Railway.
During his career, Amin received numerous awards. In 1969, Mohamed was named a Cameraman of the Year by British Television Awards. Later, in 1984, he was made a Kenyan Journalist of the Year for "best news film". The following year, in 1985, Amin attained a plaque from the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission for "humanitarian service to Ethiopia". His other honors include the Order of the Tamgah-i-Imtiaz, National Headliner Award, Jessie Meriton White Service Award in International Journalism, Overseas Press Club of America Award and many others.
