About Narayan Mahon Photography | The Archives

Narayan Mahon is an award winning commercial and editorial photographer based in Madison, Wisconsin. His editorial work focuses on issues of statelessness and identity, which are represented in a book project, Lands in Limbo, about unrecognized countries in the world. Other projects have included a portrait series about state-censored writers in Turkey, Greenland’s independence movement and the US Presidential elections. His commercial work is also multifaceted, having done campaigns for Crowne Plaza Hotel in Kuwait, Nike and industrial projects like the Marmaray Tunnel project in Turkey.

Narayan’s editorial work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Policy Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Economist, The New York Times, GEO, National Public Radio, Photo District News (PDN) Times of London, The Guardian, Global Post, USA Today, Ventiquattro (Italy), Focus (Germany) and PowerHouse Magazine, among many other national and international publications. Narayan's work is syndicated by Redux Pictures in New York and their international partners.

For 2010 Narayan has been awarded a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for his project on illegal gold mining in French Guiana. Narayan also won a 2010 grant from the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture to complete the project A Labor of Love, a series on Pacific Northwest craftsmen and women. In 2009 Narayan was a winner of the Magenta Flash Forward award for emerging photographers, as well as being awarded a grant from the Pulitzer Center for his work in Somaliland. Narayan was also a 2009 finalist for the Johns Hopkins University International Reporting Project Fellowship.