Rena was born in Azerbaijan, and is a social documentary photographer since 2002. In 2004, she was a winner of the "Fifty Crows" International Fund for Documentary Photography competition. In 2005 she participated in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass and received honourable mention in National Geographic's "All Roads" photography competition. In 2006 Rena was a winner of the Getty Images Editorial Photography Grant and the Giacomelli Memorial Fund award. The same year, her work was selected for personal exhibitions at the 18th "Visa Pour l'Image" Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France and at the "Les Imagiques" Festival of Photography in Bordeaux.
I chose her work from Xinaliq to showcase on TTP. Xinaliq is an ancient Caucasian village high in the mountains of Azerbaijan. It is located two hours from Baku in the middle of the Greater Caucasus mountains that divide Russia and the South Caucasus, and is also the highest, most remote and isolated village in country. Its people mostly speak Azerbaijani, but have their own unique language and are considered to be a different ethnicity.
Incidentally, Rena's surname is of Turkish origin and is a honorific given during the Ottoman era to civil servants.
Rena Effendi's website