Jan 2004 - Issue 1
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An Interview with Farah Mahbub
Gifted with incredible delights of wisdom and capturing felicitous moments through her work, Farah Mahbub surely is an incredible personality to know and meet with. Her Black and white alt processes might render some thoughts of non-temporal and non-spatial order, but some of the commercial work that she did is equally awesome and worth looking at for hours. Ejaz Asi
Farah Mahbub
Lecturer at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, she has been working freelance as well and managing her website is one of the... read her profile »
From learning to teaching and freelancing, how was the experience?
From the thirty-seven years of my life, I have been a professional photographer for the last 14. Born, raised and educated in Karachi(Pakistan), got drawn into photography in 1988. Being self taught, I learnt mostly from books, magazines and libraries found locally or obtained through friends and relatives from abroad.
Over these years as a professional I did "Fine Art Photography" in Pakistan
for self expression and freelance photography for various publications, national
and multinational companies, kept this erratic pace for long, until I joined
Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture
in 1997 to teach photography. Now freelance work is at its minimum and being
a fulltime faculty member at various levels is at its maximum. And in the
petite spare moments life gives me, are spent in plans to travel in search
of fresh images, and to experiment further with new techniques and processes.
Venturing into Digital Art seemed natural after being involved with time-honored
old Alternative Processes.
Your particular medium in photography? Why chosen?
Well! It would be a bit clichéd to say that every artist needs to express themselves. So let me start by saying the medium of my choice now is Fine Art Photography but that was not the case always. Earlier when I was studying fine art at a local college along with other subjects I was quite sure that painting was something I would be spending my life doing . As life would have it after college found a job at an advertising company that’s were I came to first like then love photography.
Those days it was pretty much unheard of considering being a woman in a Muslim country it all seemed like such a challenge. They were painters being born into the field of fine art every other day but photographers unless they were photo-journalist, wedding and fashion photographers were a rare breed. Interestingly I do commercial photography off and on be it fashion or interior etc one needs to be realistic when you think on how to support yourself financially but my first love is fine art and I like to be known as one (Fine Art photographer) rather then the other (Commercial Photographer).
What inspires you? An internal or external force?
I would like to share one of my favorite quotes to answer this question. Essential Sufism by "James Fadiman & Robert Frager":
"The knowledge that arises from contemplation is that knowledge that whirls the earth about the sun that raises and lowers the tides, that opens eyes and, eventually, for the devoted student, the heart. Those whose desire to see is strong enough will discern the hand of the designer in the symmetrical pattern of the leaves ,the paint strokes of the artist in the strata of the rocks, the blueprints of the engineer in the placement of the stars".
Photography helped you understand life?
Hmmm interesting question understand life “no” appreciate life “yes” by giving my eyes the pleasure of witnessing and capturing countless splendors of human life and wondrous places.
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