Biography
He was born in 1945 in Toybelen Village, Kemaliye District of Erzincan. He completed his primary and secondary education in Kemaliye. He graduated from Gümüşhane Primary Teacher Training School in 1962. He taught in various village schools.
He started working as a reporter at Hürriyet News Agency in 1969. He published a local newspaper called Gurbet (1982-2002) with his wife Songül Özgünaydın. While working as a reporter, he encountered photography and literature. In 1980, he received an award in the Abdi İpekçi Interview Competition of Milliyet Sanat magazine, and became known for the photographs and essays he published in magazines such as Milliyet Sanat and Sanat Olayı. He published articles and photographs in the photography magazine under the title "Photo Essay" for a long time (1995-2003). He wrote essays on his photographs in the "Language of Photography" column in the Gezi supplement of Cumhuriyet newspaper for four years. These were collected in the book The Language of Photography (2011). He held the exhibitions Döne Döne Van Lake (1998), Mardin (2000) and Erzincan (2002). These works were also published as an album. Mardin was exhibited in New York on February 4, 2009. He also opened the exhibition Istanbul (April 16, 2010) in New York. He brought this exhibition to art lovers in Florida. (May 1, 2010)
Yaşar Kemal-Çukurova carried out his study. The exhibition was exhibited in Istanbul, Adana, as well as Frank¬furt (September 22, 2008) and Paris (November 26, 2009). He opened the exhibition in Paris with Yaşar Kemal. The event attracted great attention in Paris. Çukurova Yaşar Kemal was his fourth photo essay book.
He wrote stories along with photographs. After his first story book, Baraj (1975), he collected his other stories in the books Taş Yolu (5th Edition, March, 2020) and Kuş Da Öldü (December, 2010). He also turned to children's literature with his story book titled Şelale Söğüt Ağaç (1985).
He published a total of 19 books of photography, stories and novels. His last photo essay book, Once Upon a Time in Kemaliye (Eğin) The Last Fifty Years (March, 2019), managed to become one of the important books of the period in which it was published.
Lütfi Özgünaydın's photographs were used in the book in which all four of Yaşar Kemal's La saga de Memed le mince (İnce Memed) novels, published by the Gallimard publishing house in France, were published together.
He held nearly a hundred exhibitions. He carried out many activities related to his birthplace, Kemaliye. He still continues to publish articles and photographs in magazines and newspapers.
After his highly acclaimed novels, Dön Zamanı (March, 2016) and Sevda Zamanı (March, 2019), which he wrote as novels under the title of "Eğin Trilogy", the trilogy is completed with the novel titled Gurbet Zamanı (2021).