Portrait of Ahmed Zakaria and his wife. Copyright Rashid Photo Studio.
Portrait of Ahmed Zakaria and his wife. Copyright Rashid Photo Studio.

Rashid Photo Studio

Premiere for 'Hopes & Dreams' at Omdurman's national cinema. Copyright Rashid Photo Studio.
Rashid Photo Studio

The Al Rashid Studio in Atbara is the largest private photo studio in Sudan. The studio includes over four million negatives dating back to the 1940s of public, private and family events, as well as of local industry, politics and movements. Atbara was at the centre of Sudan’s railway industry and regarded as the cradle of the Sudanese trade union movement and of Sudanese communism.

The studio’s founder, Rashid Mahdi (1923-2008), was a Sudanese cameraman, film producer and director ,and a self-taught photographer. Following his graduation from the industrial school in Omdurman, he bought his first camera. Rashid Mahdi then returned to Atbara to establish his own studio and what was Atbara’s first photo studio in 1939, with his self-built ‘illuminate camera’ constructed of wood. Rashid Mahdi and his studio thrived and was continued by Amin El Rashid (1945-), son of Rashid Mahdi, up to the mid-1990s.

Amin El Rashid is passionate about preserving the studio’s collections, for both the studio’s legacy but also as a cultural heritage of Sudan, especially of the cosmopolitan city that was Atbara, and as a resource for researchers. For, as stated by Amin, ‘a country without a history is a country without a future’. Amin has been working with Sudan Memory since 2017 to record a large part of the studio’s archive.

What is presented here is a selection of scanned materials that showcases this collection. For more information on the collection, please contact the collection contributor.

Atbara, Sudan

A photograph taken of a Sudanese solider and two of his friends

A photograph of Abd-Alrahman Ali Hamatu

A photograph of a citizen from Atbara

The dignitaries of the Council of the Northern Directorate in the farewell of the Directorate's Director Mr.Hassan Green

A photograph of Al-Suhaily, a member of Almajazeeb's family in Al-Damr

Engineer Mohamed Sharif and other playwrights

High school at the city of Atbara

Hassan Al-Amin and his daughter

Graduation of a batch of drivers of military vehicles

A photograph of a Sudanese man

Photograph of the fifth session of the the Institute of Public Administration book-keeping centre

Al-Makki Abdul-Baqi, Mahdi Othman, Amin Al-Rashid and another child

Ali Mahmoud Al-Awad and his two daughters

A photograph of a Sudanese female citizen from Atbara

A photogaph of Abd Almoniem Ajami

Nemiri's visit to Atbara

Atbara's Northern territory police department and Mr. Ahmed Awad

Nadia Riyadh

A group photograph of a tennis court of Mohiuddin Muhammad Abdullah, Military ruler Mahdi Hamid, Director of the Railway Mr. Mohammed Al-Fadl, and a number of athletes.

A photograph of a male Sudanese citizen in traditional Sudanese clothing

A photograph of Amin Al-Rasheed, Hamid, and Fatima

A photograph of Ahmed Steve and a number of citizens from the Western region

A photograph taken during the Sovereign Council's visit to the city of Atbara

A photograph of the citizen/ Wad Shaban

Mohammed Alhassan Abdallah alongside some of his employees

A photograph of Al-Sir Mohammed Al-Fakki

Sons of Samuel Gelny

Al-Shingeety Mohammed Salih, Yaqoob Micheal, Sheikh Ali Abd-Alrahamn and the mayor Soroor Alsaflawi during the visit of President Azahri to the city of Atbara

A wedding portrait of a Sudanese couple.

Saeed Ahmed Mohammed Ali

Note to user

Dear user,

In response to current developments in the web technology used by the Goobi viewer, the software no longer supports your browser.

Please use one of the following browsers to display this page correctly.

Thank you.