Fazal Sheikh

You are described as a documentary photographer. However, your images avoid many areas of documentary and focus on the portrait.

I am uncomfortable with the divisions imposed upon the practitioners of photography and the ideological constraints which such labels impose. Why should a work be limited to the realm of documentary, art, portraiture, fashion, or journalism? Could we not imagine works which transcend those boundaries and which may fall within the sphere of various headings? I want the work to provoke a dialogue between our expectations of a subject, or even a mode of working. I try to make images that are respectful of their subject, that render them in an empowering way. I use the aesthetic qualities of the image – the formal aspects – to entice the viewer to engage with the image and, with luck, to encourage him/her to want to know more about the subject about which the work was created.

In terms of portraiture, in the strict sense, I imagine that the strength of any given image is borne by the quality of engagement between the person making the image and the sitter. The way in which a person presents themselves to the camera – comfortable with a life lived in their skin – is invariably far more compelling than anything that the photographer could concoct in his imagination. In that regard, the photographic act is one of recognition and receptivity, rather than one of grand invention.

Information from Photo-wisdom. Master Photographers on Their Art. Lewis Blackwell