Having graduating from various technical courses (in 1949, the Yerevan Film College, the faculty of Economics at the Yerevan State University in 1956), Vazgen Azatyan eventually turned to photojournalism as his primary occupation. As a photo–correspondent, he collaborated with local and all-union press printing his photographs in journals such as Ogonyokand Izvestia. In tandem, Azatyan also published the guide-book albums Leninakan(1989), Yerevan(1989) and Jermuk(1990) through Armenian publishing houses. In 1955 he was elected a member of the USSR Union of Journalists and a member of the Writers' Union of Armenia in 1988. Becoming more involved in the publishing business, Azatyan founded his own, Lilit Publishing House in the mid 1980s.

Azatyan's photography served practical purposes and was mainly used as a means for advertising and popularization. As a documentarian, the photographer did not try to develop individual stylistic or thematic approaches, limiting himself to very ‘straight’ and perfunctory recording of facts, phenomena and environments. Nevertheless, his work with the photobook and photo-album formats is an interesting page in the history of late Soviet-Armenian photography.

Vigen Galstyan, 2016