HAROON IFTIKHAR

Among my prized coffee table books is A World History of Photography. Over two centuries of an art form that, at its best, does what Henri Cartier-Bresson believed it should: observe the decisive moment, the fleeting alignment of experience, geometry and feeling that will never arrange itself that way again.

I’ve always felt that platforms like Instagram flatten this. Photographs become content in a scroll, stripped of the pacing, sequencing, and silence that let an image breathe. Cartier-Bresson saw photographs as moments; moments deserve to be met on their own terms, and the photographer ought to retain some say in how they’re encountered. Hence this portfolio.

Photography is a hobby of perspective and synchronicity for me. Together they quietly underpin every other facet of a life well-lived. Paying attention, and noticing when the world briefly conspires to show you something, are not signs to turn a blind eye to. After all, the best photographs are never really created; the photographer is merely only ever a conduit.