Abu Shah, born in Karaikal, Pondicherry, inherited his passion for cinema from his father, Mohammad Abu Backer, who was part of the film industry. Shah added his father's name to his own, becoming Abu Shah.

Despite his father's brief stint in the film industry, he was forced into married life, leaving his cinematic dreams behind.

my father worked as an assistant art director for the movie " deva sundari " which was filmed in 5 languages.Tamil TR Mahalingam (debut ) , Malayalam Prem Nazir's (debut),, Kannada saroja devi (debut) Deva sundari was filmed in 1949 and it was dropped unfortunately. Later on the film was released in Malayalam in 70's

Shah's early fascination with photography led him to secretly enroll in classes, eventually pursuing a diploma in video and film technology.

He started as an assistant for S.Muthu Ganesh, working on films like

'Kalloori Vaasal' (1995) and “Nethaji “ (1995)

In 2007, Abu Shah got his big break as a cinematographer with

"Naayaghan" and continued with projects like "Kadhai" (2009 ) and "Isaac Newton s/o Phillipose" ( 2013 ) , His recent film “ priyamudan priya “ (2023)directed by AJ Sujith , 100th film of music director Srikanth Deva .