To my continued delight, the DAWN newspaper from Karachi/Pakistan continues to produce a stunning blend of news, analysis, opinion (none better than the quirky Nadeem Paracha ) - and culture! Every few days or so it carries one photo-essay or other, lavishly produced by travel photographers, who very often are more hobbyists than real professionals...
Consider this gorgeous tribute to the Chenab river "Chenab: Pakistan’s river of love" by Syed Mehdi Bukhari whom a short biographical note describes as "a Network Engineer by profession, and a traveler, poet, photographer and writer by passion."
I take the liberty of reproducing couple of the images from that photo-essay -
(I know...they don't look real...)
Danial Shah is described on his site as "an adventure seeker, independent, freelance travel & documentary photographer and writer wandering tirelessly around Pakistan for positive stories. As a storyteller, Danial travels extensively , working on commission, assignment, creative stock images, writing and training." His latest picture-essay in the Dawn tells the unending story of borders...this time with its locus in the Baltistan region of the western Himalayas...the forbidding mountainous regions now partly in Pakistan -
Borders that separate: A daughter’s lament
Basil Andrews is "is a young cultural photographer and aspiring social entrepreneur.
His personal interests particularly lie in advocating human and cultural rights and environmentalism through photography as a visual medium." His visual essays on the everyday are captivating slices from daily life in South Asia. Consider -
Love, labour and laundry: The remarkable stories of Karachi’s dhobis
The wonderful thing about Basil's essays is that there is a human story also - in text that accompanies the splendid pictures! His most recent piece, titled "Karachi through time: A watchman, salesman and five fishermen," is a very interesting and rich reflection the concept of time - first through five fisherman whose lives progressed by many natural rhythms and signs from dawn to dusk as they went about their fishing activities. Today, of course, modern technologies and instruments - the GPS, various timepieces - have replaced the dependence on the previous methods. The essay then shifts to the people who deal with Time - the many watch-sellers and watch repairers. A fine transition that takes us into this other world which also has witnessed such vast technological changes. And some commonplace but yet apt observations by the many protagonists in the essay -
But one cannot end this brief review without mention of another splendid recent essay by Ali Usman Qasmi (a professor at LUMS?) titled "1971 war: Witness to history." Do check it out!
Consider this gorgeous tribute to the Chenab river "Chenab: Pakistan’s river of love" by Syed Mehdi Bukhari whom a short biographical note describes as "a Network Engineer by profession, and a traveler, poet, photographer and writer by passion."
I take the liberty of reproducing couple of the images from that photo-essay -
Danial Shah is described on his site as "an adventure seeker, independent, freelance travel & documentary photographer and writer wandering tirelessly around Pakistan for positive stories. As a storyteller, Danial travels extensively , working on commission, assignment, creative stock images, writing and training." His latest picture-essay in the Dawn tells the unending story of borders...this time with its locus in the Baltistan region of the western Himalayas...the forbidding mountainous regions now partly in Pakistan -
Borders that separate: A daughter’s lament
Basil Andrews is "is a young cultural photographer and aspiring social entrepreneur.
His personal interests particularly lie in advocating human and cultural rights and environmentalism through photography as a visual medium." His visual essays on the everyday are captivating slices from daily life in South Asia. Consider -
Love, labour and laundry: The remarkable stories of Karachi’s dhobis
The wonderful thing about Basil's essays is that there is a human story also - in text that accompanies the splendid pictures! His most recent piece, titled "Karachi through time: A watchman, salesman and five fishermen," is a very interesting and rich reflection the concept of time - first through five fisherman whose lives progressed by many natural rhythms and signs from dawn to dusk as they went about their fishing activities. Today, of course, modern technologies and instruments - the GPS, various timepieces - have replaced the dependence on the previous methods. The essay then shifts to the people who deal with Time - the many watch-sellers and watch repairers. A fine transition that takes us into this other world which also has witnessed such vast technological changes. And some commonplace but yet apt observations by the many protagonists in the essay -
I explained the modern concept of time to him too. After a while, he looked at me and replied back with certainty. “Well that is how civilisation and people progressed. All the technology that you see today is because of this 'modern time'.”
But one cannot end this brief review without mention of another splendid recent essay by Ali Usman Qasmi (a professor at LUMS?) titled "1971 war: Witness to history." Do check it out!
No comments:
Post a Comment