Adnan started his career as a darkroom assistant in 1997. He started working for Reuters as a stringer and was later given a staff position. He has captured several challenging situations over the course of his career, including 1999 Kandahar hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC814, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the 2011–2012 Maldives political crisis, 2013 Cyclone Phailin in Orissa, 2015 Nepal earthquake and the 2016 Dhaka attack.