Still

I am biased to photography, I understand that all visual arts are different from one another, I have equal admiration for the works of painters, animators, designers, calligraphers, sculptors, graffiti artists, architects, and the ones I intend to get into bit further in a bit, videographers and filmmakers. However, I continue to cling to the still photo as the form of visual art that fascinates me the most, and the two to my artistic one-two punches, with one being poetry, of course.

Like many photographers, I feel the Earth moving beneath my feet, steering me to an undesirable destination, a metaphorical phenomena not caused by nature but by decisions made in a room of white men, likely to be lead by a someone disguised as a white man known as Mark Zuckerberg. What I’m referring to is the pressure to switch to videography, which, upon a quick search on YouTube, you’ll find hundreds of photographers either explaining the process, or like myself, remain loyal to their art form.

Few people may know this but photography came late to my life, I only picked up the camera at 26. For most of my childhood I used to draw, and I was good at it before having the hobby destroyed in the long war known as college life. Another form of visual art that I had interest in years ahead of photography is filmmaking, I love cinema and spent significant amount of time studying it, but I felt challenged by it and ended up being busy with writing poetry, which I’m sure far more people know this about me by now.

One of the first photos I shot upon picking up the camera for the first time back in April 2017, it had to be a mirror selfie.

And then I found photography, it’s a hobby that I got into over five years ago that turned into a passion of mine halfway through my journey. Now I must insist that you don’t have to be passionate about something to keep doing it, it’s okay for one to have hobbies, which was the original plan when I picked up a camera for the first time. I was, and still, fortunate to be surrounded by amazing photographers like Ishaq Madan, Mustafa Bastaki, and Enas Sistani to name a few, who helped me find my way in photography in many ways.

Now we’re in summer 2022, I’m more experienced and confident about my work, I recently got into 35mm film photography to expand my knowledge and to slow down in this fast-paced world. A world that’s moving towards a rapid and mindless consumption of shallow and trendy content, and it’s my passions, poetry and photography, who are paying the price. I’m concerned, though I know it’s just the anxiety speaking, that the still photo may one day be obsolete, a relic of the days where stillness was treasured and valued.

One thing I’m learning in poetry is the ability to say more with less, poems feel much more deeper when I try to describe my feelings with fewer words. Japanese poets in the Edo period, that gave us timeless art pieces like The Great Wave off Kanagawa, knew what they were doing when they came up with a form of poetry known as Haiku, one could say so much with just 17 syllables. Now before we drift off talking about poetry and 17th century Japan, let me explain how all of this ties in with my love for photography.

“The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Katsushika Hokusa is one of the most famous paintings in the world and one of my favorites. I draw a lot of inspiration from paintings, though not particularly this one.

Photography is exactly that, saying more with less, the reason behind my passion for this art form and my blatant bias towards it goes back to how moved I am by the power of a single frame. I reject all the pressure to move to something different, I won’t allow anyone to dictate to me how to express myself, even if my work ends up not being seen and experienced as much as I’d like to, I’ll continue to create the work I love in the ways I love, whether it’s writing poetry, or the click of a shutter button that generates a still.

With love,

Your digital companion.