Rena Effendi

Rena Effendi, National Geographic Magazine

In Transylvania and other remote areas of Romania, many people farm on a small scale, in ways unchanged for centuries. 20 June 2012.

In Romania, 2.9 million people own farmland, which constitutes one-third of all the agricultural holdings in the European Union. Most of these farms work in ways unchanged for centuries. Farmers struggle to compete with other European imports and the profitability of the agricultural sector is low. Farming families often need to find other ways to earn money.

Rena Effendi is an award-winning documentary photographer whose work is described as having a deep sense of empathy with a quiet celebration of the strength of the human spirit.

She is the author of two monographs, the first published in 2009 entitled Pipe Dreams: A Chronicle of Lives along the Pipeline and in 2013, Liquid Land. 

Effendi is the laureate of the Prince Claus Fund award for Culture and Development. Her work has been exhibited worldwide including at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Saatchi Gallery, Istanbul Modern, the Venice Biennial, NYC MOMA and other venues. Effendi’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the Istanbul Modern, the Open Society Foundations and the Prince Claus Fund. 

She has won several international photography awards including the Overseas Press Club of America awards in 2020, a Sony World Photography award, Getty Images Editorial grant and the Alexia Foundation grant. In 2012 and again in 2019, Effendi was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet award in photography and sustainability. 

A frequent contributor to the National Geographic Magazine, Effendi has worked on editorial commissions for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times magazine, VOGUE, Marie Claire, The New Yorker, GEO, The Daily Telegraph, Newsweek, TIME, The Sunday Times, New York Magazine and many others.