Aditya Arya is a commercial and travel photographer. He began professional photography in 1980 after graduating from the History department of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.
He was involved in the establishment of India Photo Archive Foundation and the Neel Dongre Awards and Grants for Excellence in Photography. Aditya Arya has been on the Jury of the National Art Exhibition 2014 organised by Lalit Kala Akademi and a guest faculty member at Sri Aurobindo Centre of Art and Communication and at the Jamia Millia Islamia University’s Institute of Mass Communication. He was also the Director at the Academy for Photographic Excellence (APEX) and a Guest Fellow and Curator at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.
Arya is known for his work in hotel photography with chains such as Radisson, Club Mahindra, and Oberoi group throughout India and abroad, as well as his work in food, industry, and healthcare advertising.[1] [2]
Aditya Arya has travelled extensively across the country and his work reflects this. He has worked across India to explore different regions of the country. He has worked in Nagaland with writer Vibha Joshi to cover the 16 remaining Naga tribes.[3] His work focusing on the Buddhist art in the 900-year-old monastery in Alchi, Ladakh, and the Himalayas, was covered by the Smithsonian Magazine.[4] He has also worked on the Musahar Community in Bihar.[5] He has also covered landscapes in Ladakh and the Jal Mahal in Jaipur. Other than this, he has photographed the Khampti tribe in Arunachal Pradesh and a lot of rural India.[5]
Arya worked in collaboration with the German Embassy to cover 'Germany through Indian eyes'.[6]
Aditya Arya is part of the faculty and advisory board at the Academy of Photographic Excellence or APEX. He was one of the founding members of the Academy.[7]
Aditya Arya is the proprietor of the Aditya Arya Archive, which houses rare and significant photographic collections, including the works of Kulwant Roy. As one of the founding members of the India Photo Archive Foundation, he served as its Chairman and Trustee, contributing significantly to its mission. Arya has been dedicated to restoring and preserving these invaluable collections, making them accessible to the public through publications and exhibitions, thereby promoting the rich heritage of Indian photography.[8] [9] He most recently curated the exhibition titled Kulwant Roy: Retrospective at the National Gallery of Modern Art.[10]