An eye for the uncommon

Photographer Abdulnasser Ali Al Shamsi sees the mathematical in the everyday, the art in decaying buildings, and the timelessness in the pedestrian


UAE national Abdulnasser Ali Al Shamsi has an uncommon vision. He sees the mathematical in the everyday, the art in decaying buildings, and the timelessness in the pedestrian. In his viewfinder, a simple wooden bench surrounded by fuzzy thistles becomes an image of eternal rest, a waterlogged dhow leaning to one side is the epitomy of forgotten tradition and a stairway made of wooden beams forms a precise parabola.

"Everybody looks at the same thing, but we all see something different," said the 32-year-old artist, looking over his first public exhibit during Arts Surprises at the BurJuman Centre last week.

Since his first experience with the family camera 10 years ago, the environment specialist has been teaching himself photography by taking pictures on an almost daily basis.

Of the 20 black-and-white photographs on display, some of the most powerful are the most simplistic: an old door with wooden studs lined up to look like chess pieces, a battered old truck carrying water to camel farms in the middle of a shammal, and a fort in ruins in Fujairah. "With black and white you can taste the picture more," he says of his fascination for the medium. "You get a feel for the shadows, the layers of reality."

During winter, Abdulnasser takes his camera everywhere he goes. He is constantly looking behind him for an interesting shot, or always walking into abandoned buildings and climbing sand dunes to find just the right perspective.

He is fascinated, it seems, by the old – whether it is taking pictures of Dubai's old whitewashed buildings by the creek, the abras, narrow alleyways or even household materials like fired clay urns.

Some of his pictures have a sage-like quality. Twin pictures of a crumbling wall with a mosque in the background remind us to keep our eyes on the future and feet in the present.

In one, the distant mosque is in focus and the wall blurred, and in the adjacent frame it is reversed.

"Sometimes you look at the things that are far away and forget about the ones that are right next to you," he says. "Or sometimes you are too busy looking to the present to give much thought to your future."

Fresh from the positive response to his show, Abdulnasser hopes to encourage more nationals to take up photography or any other field to record their unique viewpoint of the country's evolving yet unchanging nature.