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Pebble Beach #1 by Saqib Zulfiqar |
Saqib Zulfiqar agrees with the internationally renowned photographer Bruno Barbey, who said “Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world.”
“That is exactly what I have experienced in my travels throughout the world,” wrote Zulfiqar, the Lamar Soutter Library’s first 2016 Artist in Residence, whose photography exhibit “Beauty, as I see it” opens on Wednesday, Jan. 6.
The exhibit reflects Zulfiqar’s own world travels to South Asia and the Middle East, as well as throughout the United States. His main American subjects are lighthouses and the natural beauty of sunrises, sunsets and landscapes.
Zulfiqar, a senior database administrator for UMass University Information Technology Systems, found his avocation when what started off as fulfilling his wife’s desire for photographs of their first-born daughter 18 years ago morphed into what he calls his main passion and stress-neutralizing hobby.
“We experience the world through shapes, colors, textures, light and shadow. These things have some sort of embedded emotions that are evoked when we look at a particular image,” Zulfiqar wrote in his artist’s statement. “I feel my best work is what has been successful in depicting and evoking the same emotions as I felt when I took them. These feelings could be of mystery, dream, or anything that could be a bit of escape from reality, but reality nevertheless.
“The act of fine art photography for me starts off as a 2 dimensional image that transforms into how I felt and experienced the spectacle. I achieve this by that I have learnt over the years.”
With training from the New York Institute of Photography, Zulfiqar shoots digital images and processes them with advanced Photoshop techniques. His black and white work has been influenced by world renowned fine art photographers Joel Tjintjelaar and Julia Anna Gospodarou. Mentors for his color work have been Tony Kuyper and Sean Bagshaw.
An opening reception for “Beauty, as I see it” will be held on Thursday, Jan. 7, at 5 p.m. on the first floor of the Lamar Soutter Library. The exhibit will be up from Jan. 6 to Feb. 28.
