Photographers Pakistan: Scheherazade

Scheherazade is the mythical narrator of the 1001 arabian nights. She was the 1001th wife of a king who used to marry a new bride every day and kill them in the morning. To keep herself alive Scheherazade told the king a story every night with its conclusion to be left for the night to come, she told the king 1000 stories and over the period the king fell in love with her and spared her life.

Scheherazade shares more than just her name with the wise queen, she tells a story with every shot she captures. Story telling always came to her easy but finding the right way to tell her tales took her to many places, at first she gave words a try but they proved insufficient than one day her friend showed her a dslr and she knew what her tales had been missing. After finishing her university she got a job at Warid and used her savings to buy herself her first point and shoot camera, at first it seemed that her tales will now get the voice she always wanted them to have but within a month it was dawned on her that a point and shoot was not enough so she turned back to her bank balance, which was running a little low but being a person with a desire to be at the top she managed to get herself enough funds to buy herself a used Canon 4D.

Canon 40D was a new experience instead of jumping into the field she took some time to understand her equipment. Spending countless hours online she read every tutorial she could find on the net about her camera but still she felt that she didnt had enough information so she took a 4 day workshop on Canon. It was then that she finally started her journey as a storyteller, first came the 365 days project than 52 weeks and a lot of others have taken a pose in front of her camera since than.

Her biggest regret is that she took some time to adopt her equipment, now the camera is a part of her but when she first started she used to take it only when she was going out for a shoot which she now regrets because life is random and a lot of times the perfect shots can be found in the most random places. When we asked for advice she start speaking photography which sounded gibberish to us, here is what she says

"Don't just keep on taking photos. Learn more about your camera online, what else can your camera do, what happens when you use a prime lens, how is post processing done. Everything is available on google, you just have to be pro-active. Also try using a prime lens like the 50mm for a year non stop and you'll learn tons about your camera just from that alone."

Photography is evolving every minute, back in the day it costed an arm and a leg to buy a point and shoot now we have mobiles that put most point and shoots to shame and dont cost much, so the photoscape is changing its not about how many pixels you have or how good your lens is anymore, it is now about post processing and how you present your image. A good photo is a combination of skill, creativity and a good photographer.