Only 17 when he moved to Kenya in 1947 from Punjab, and after an initial struggle to find a job, Mohinder Singh Dhillon finally got a breakthrough in 1954 when he bought out his own employers’ Hailé Studio. From there on, he went on to be commissioned to photograph the British Army (in Kenya), regular photo assignments for The East African Standard and eventually setting up Africapix in 1961 that became present in every major event coverage in East Africa.
It was at Africapix that he carved his way through to become the official photographer and filmmaker for the Ethiopian monarch, Emperor Haile Selassie with whom he travelled the world over. Besides Haile Selassie, Mohinder also photographed Ugandan dictator Idi Amin for over eight years. He also covered dangerous and life-threatening political conflicts in Congo and in Zanzibar in 1964. His films of the tragic 1984 Ethiopian famine finally moved the world into action resulting in one of the biggest famine relief operations in history.
