Max Vadukul was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1961, to Indian parents who were part of the early twentieth-century Gujarati diaspora that had settled in what was then British East Africa. Amidst the upheaval following Kenya's independence, he moved to England at the age of nine, where he was raised in a working-class borough in North London. During his grammar school years, Vadukul discovered an idle camera in his home, left by his father who worked for Zeiss, the German lens maker. From that moment, his ambition to become a photographer was born.
At the age of 22, Vadukul was discovered by designer Yohji Yamamoto, who hired him for several prestigious ad campaigns. This was during the era when magazines had the power to launch careers, and Vadukul, who was self-taught, now found himself among the ranks of legendary photographers he had revered growing up. His work was frequently featured in French and Italian Vogue, alongside the likes of David Bailey, Paolo Roversi, Deborah Turbeville, Barry Lategan, and Helmut Newton.
Vadukul's portfolio, which spans an impressive 39 years, also includes significant creative chapters with Vogue Paris, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Égoïste, W, Town & Country, and The New Yorker. In 1996, he replaced Richard Avedon to become only the second staff photographer in the history of The New Yorker.
Vadukul's signature black-and-white portraiture style, blending kinetic spontaneity with masterful craftsmanship, has been widely recognized for its originality and iconic power. In 2000, he published the acclaimed book, Max: Photographs by Max Vadukul. His work has also been showcased in several solo and group shows, including "Beyond Words: Photography in The New Yorker" at the Howard Greenberg Gallery (2011); "Yohji's Women," at the Wapping Project Bankside (2011); and "Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History 1955 to the Present," at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (2009).
Currently residing and working in Milan, Vadukul was honored at the Taormina Fashion Festival. An exhibition at the Al Safa Art and Design Library in Dubai (2022), and the solo "The Witness Climate Change" exhibit at the Fondazione Sozzani, a project he spent two years on to produce 20 large-scale black-and-white images that were the highlights of 2022. This year´s highlihgt certainly was the opening of the exhibition “Through Her Eyes” at the Galleria D’Italia.
Vadukul carries on his decades-long creative collaboration with Yohji Yamamoto, which recently released a Max Vadukul Y's capsule collection, as he continues to shoot new campaigns for Y’s.