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 such as Instagram flatten the soul. Photographs become content in a scroll, stripped of the stage and silence that let them breathe. Henri 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 experienced. Hence, this portfolio.

Photography is an art of perspective and synchronicity for me. Together they quietly underpin every other facet of a life well-lived. Paying acute attention, and noticing when the world briefly conspires to show you something, are not signs to turn a blind eye to.

The best photographs, after all, can never be created; the photographer can merely be a conduit.