Renowned for his technical skill and artistic vision, A. L. Syed’s 70 year career yielded hundreds of remarkable photographs. His talent gained recognition early in life when, in 1925, The Illustrated Weekly of India published and awarded his photograph Sunset at Chowpatty, taken during a school trip to Bombay. A few years later, in 1934, his piece Traveller of the East received a prestigious photography award from the Kodak Company in Bombay.
In the 1920s, Syed earned acclaim as the official photographer for the royal families of Palanpur in Gujarat and other princely states. His close association with the Nawab of Palanpur took him across the country and eventually to Bombay, where he lived with the Nawab from 1940 to 1975.
Equipped with his Rolleicord Camera, Syed’s subjects ranged from wildlife and landscapes to architecture and everyday life, all captured with a contemporary flair. Making use of the interplay of light and shadow, his genre compositions captured, with a dramatic flair, several historical events from pre and post Independence India. Developing close personal relationship with various royal families, Syed, while continuing his service with Palanpur court also broadened his services to other princely states across present-day Gujarat and Rajasthan, including Baroda, Saurashtra, Bikaner, Kotah, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Bundi, Dungarpur, and Narisinghgarh.
Syed was also fascinated by desert landscapes and portraiture. According to old timer SM Modi, president of Banaskantha district Kelavni Mandal, “The still photographs of K Asif’s magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam were also clicked by Syed...His love for desert and camels as subjects was evident in his art. In his later years, Syed became well-known for his camel compositions. So much so, that his friends called him The Old War Camel”.