Born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1990, Hedayatullah was a young boy when the Taliban took control. Today he is an award-winning photographer, but Hedayat remembers the time when photos and artistic works containing human figures were banned. After the fall of the Taliban, Hedayat sought opportunities to pursue his childhood passion for photography by attending all available photojournalism courses in Kabul.

Climbing the ranks, he was promoted to chief photojournalist for the European Pressphoto Agency in Kabul. He has been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Telegraph, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera, BBC and El País. Hedayat’s photography has also won prizes from Unesco, Premio Luchetta and the British Embassy in Kabul. In 2015, his image was selected as part of TIME’s 100 photos of the year. In 2021, Hedayat was chosen as the first Afghan journalist to cover the Olympic Games, which led him to Tokyo. He returned from Japan on 14 August. On 15 August, Afghanistan fell again to the Taliban, which forced him to flee.

Hedayat is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.