Vivid stills

Farukh Adnan, Irfan Ahmad Khan and Rabbania Shirjeel’s work is similar because is revolves around people and places that we are familiar with, but the method they employ to carry out the same is what makes their work different from each other. While one makes maximum use of technology, the other avoids getting into technicalities as much as possible. Regardless of their methodologies and themes, all three of them have come up with photographs that are definitely worth watching.
Farukh Adnan who completed his degree in Communication design from NCA captures natural materials in urban and open spaces and shows how these materials interact or communicate with us. People, shops and materials fascinate him and within his work he attempts to show their relationship to us. Farukh has been photographing for nearly 4 years. His work stands out because he attempts to merge photography and videography using a special technique called Motion Capture, which allows five clicks per second and makes it possible for him to get hold of moving pictures from daily life.
While Farukh relies on technology to come up with motion pictures, 41-year-old Irfan Ahmad Khan doesn’t like using a digital camera and prefers a manual one, “frankly I don’t even know how to use a digital camera so I use SLR cameras and manual ones.” He feels that since a digital camera gets everything done itself, one doesn’t get a chance to showcase their skills. Irfan has not been formally educated in photography and he goes candid about it, “I don’t know any technicalities and if you ask me about them I’ll simply go blank.” He claims to takes pictures just as a layman would. Irfan’s job demands a lot of traveling and he enjoys it to the core because it gives him an opportunity to capture a variety of people and places. As he travelled across continents, he clicked images from Pakistan, Europe and North America which were put up in this exhibition. Irfan’s love story with the manual camera started when he was 6 years old and although manual camera has its limitations, Irfan finds pleasure in it and tries to convert the limitations into opportunities to explore further.
Another brave explorer whose work revolved around traditional abaya, kunda and tikkay is Rabbania Shirjeel. She talks about her photography, “My work reflects my personality in the sense that I love change. I try to come up with something new each time. Abayas and scarfs attract me because I’ve mostly donned western apparel so for me it was a nice change. I wanted to explore what it was all about.” Rabbania likes to call herself an experimenter and during her photography she observed how pictures that were taken in light had a different colour and presented different details altogether. It fascinated her to see how light could change the entire image and she was eager to share her findings with all.

The work of these three photographers can be seen till December 23, 2011 at 39 K Model Town.