Written by: Mahnaz Shujrah
Posted on: September 19, 2018 | 
| 中文
Portugese Club Napier Street by Arif Mahmood
An exhibition and discussion ‘Napier Street’ with renowned photographer Arif Mahmood, was organized by the Gurmani Center for Languages and Literature at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on Thursday, 13th September. The room was full of professors and enthusiastic students from different universities, including the National College of Arts (NCA). The exhibition is currently displayed on the first floor of the Academic Block building in LUMS, and will remain there till December.
The event kicked off with the Dean of Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS) at LUMS, Kamran Asdar Ali, painting a backdrop describing Karachi as it existed in the 1970s and 1980s. He highlighted the beauty of Karachi's diversity, and the relationship Arif Mahmood builds with the city through his distinct photographic style. The organizer of the event, Assistant Professor MGSHSS and Co-Director of the Gurmani Centre, Bilal Tanweer came onstage to introduce Arif Mahmood and acknowledge the people involved in making the event possible.
Arif Mahmood is an internationally recognized Pakistani photographer, based in the city by the sea, Karachi. With various exhibitions and publications to his credit, he is also the Chief Operating Officer at White Star Photo Pvt. Ltd, a photographic firm associated with the DAWN Media Group. Over the past 33 years of his career, Mahmood has gathered photographs and stories from across the country, and as he mentioned, some places have changed so much since he photographed them that they only exist in photographs. He started off with a presentation of his most iconic images and moments, starting from Karachi Sea View in the late 1980's, and moving on to his experiences of capturing shrines. In the words of Bilal Tanweer, “His work combines the documentary seriousness of history and place (much of his work is located specifically, with dates, people, and geography), with the ephemeral (there is always a serious engagement with the contingent in his work: the light, the gestures, the unexpected camera angles), along with the artistic transformations he offers in the production of his photographs."
This specific project for Napier Street was started between 2006 and 2007, but the pictures which are part of the exhibition were taken 2011 onwards. Arif Mahmood talked about his initial medium for photography: black and white film. He only switched to digital photography after 2009, due to the time constraint with film and the benefit of instant feedback with digital. Mahmood also discussed his interest in different cultures, including the Goan-Christian community of Napier Street, and how the lens is his medium for exploration. He talked about how this medium “opens doors we don't normally enter” and allows us to “wander into places of beauty.” He mentioned how perfect shots don’t exist, and it takes time, patience, commitment, and passion to suffer for that one unexpected shot. His photography doesn’t showcase ideal situations, rather it captures a different perspective of the mundane in life, but as he said, only a certain kind of eye can, “observe to discover the extraordinary.”
On the other hand, curator Ali Sultan commented, “If much time is spent with the pictures themselves, one slowly realizes that Arif's most alluring quality is one not of interpretation, not of judgment but of tenderness. Arif is the presenter of the world, where he and the thing he photographs are both equal, trapped forever in the unknown.”
His pictures speak for themselves, but the stories he shared made them unforgettable. His favourite place in Karachi for photography is a bus stop in Saddar, between Asr and Maghrib (evening) when the mellow sunlight falls on the street, with people scurrying home after work. Thus, the perfect shot won't be there waiting for you, but if you believe, you'll start to see the extraordinary in each frame.
The audience raised questions about how to make the subject being photographed feel comfortable, how one could blend in as a photographer, and what are the ethical implications of using someone's image without clear consent. Arif Mahmood explained that photography is a two way communication, and you develop a sense of what is permissible and what is not. Over the past decades, he has noticed growing apprehension amongst his subjects, which didn’t exist when he started out in the field. The message for the audience was to practice your passion with full commitment, to the point where you become one with it. Only when you are comfortable, will your subjects also feel at ease. In order to see the extraordinary, one first has to be willing to see it.
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