Mohammad Mohammadi
Graduated with a bachelor’s degree in museology from Isfahan Art University, he started photography as a self-taught hobby in 2014, focusing on architecture and minimalism. He also experimented with social documentary and portrait photography. Moreover, during these years, he recorded the architectural photography of the tangible heritage of Isfahan and Shahreza with a historiographical view. In his artistic life, Mohammadi has paid more attention to photographic playfulness than to mediums and artistic presentations, which stems from his experimentalism and infinite .passion to capture the unseen.
Beyond Seeing & Documentary Portrait
According to many professional photographers around the world, a quality documentary portrait tells a story. In this sense, it goes beyond capturing faces, as there are fantastic documentary portraits that do not show the faces of the subjects. With the fact of capturing a fixed image of the sky, the earth, the boots without capturing a face, you can learn a person’s profession as well as their form and lifestyle. A documentary portrait is more than a photograph, it is an unfolding story.
According to professionals who are dedicated to this type of photography, great portraits are not made with a quick photo in mind. Just as an author needs to study his characters, a photographer needs to think about how he’s going to tell his story through a still image…
Documentary portraiture seeks to make the world know, admire and understand the situation of universal cultures as well as their condition and way of life. Its sole purpose is not to inform, but to show the reality and history behind the still image. The photographer does not direct events in order to photograph them, but takes photographs as they unfold so that they are spontaneous and unintentional.
In documentary portraiture, photographers usually do not ask for subjects to pose to capture the moment. Most commercial photographers assume that subjects pose in order to seek the artistic in the photograph. The nature of documentary portraiture is to represent the naturalness of the subjects’ daily lives, so it will be difficult to find a photographer who offers a pose. The best portraits come from the naturalness of the expressions.
The idea is to represent the subjects as they are, without putting on a certain mask or seeing it a certain way…