In Reverse

There is a wandering native to the photographic practice. Intractable, it matters not if the displacement of self is either overtly romantic or harshly inconvenient: it affords or penalizes by the same suspension of time within the life of the practitioner. Not all that is seen between the islands of documentation merits observation and it is this elusive and unpredictable manner that interests me. At what panorama does one stand and declare from a hidden life that this moment, or that, feels worthy of remark or reflection?

My earliest memories of organizing sight for the purpose of discerning understanding or inquiry comes from the window of my parent’s study, between bookshelves and magazines collected and displayed in no particular order. The windowpane outlined the exterior world in a three-by-two vertical grid. Only the lower panels were within view of a skinny 9-year-old. I would find myself there, by curiosity or by merit of having committed some mild offense and sent to the corner to reflect. It is here I recall closing one eye against the blurry window, smudging reality to suit momentary enjoyment.

Later, I would be 17 and open “In The American West” by Richard Avedon at a bookstore. I’d feel taken aback - slightly offended at the clarity and concise potency these portraits held over me. They would not leave my head and troubled me for some time. I returned with vicious energy and took down book after book, stacked high, and began to consume photography as less a matter of curiosity than one of need born of some unknown, unusual, or unnatural hunger.

It became clear that consumption alone would not suffice. There was, after all, so much confusion within me that required exorcism. One may question a teenager's delusions of grandeur but they would be remiss to doubt the intensity of their passions. The need to cast off the familiar, to roam highways and find my place overtook reason and patience. I stole my sister’s 35mm camera, read a guide by Ansel Adams on the basics of photography, and drove the States. It would be some time before these efforts were rewarded with anything beyond poorly exposed negatives and endless frustration. Often the outcome would be awful. In motel parking lots and stranger’s homes, over a few years and a few thousand miles, there was a culling of fat by error and failure. In wandering there was belonging. The human element, the wellspring from which all documentary work flows, was leaving an appreciation for the temporal. And for the unique sensation that comes with having truly attempted to see oneself and another. One within one.

I am 38 now and I no longer photograph my wanderings as I once did. Photography and its feelings have transformed. For better or worse. When I look at these pictures, they remind me of life that does not fit into other parts.

I look at the remaining chips on the table, scoop them together and cash them in. Lovers past and white mountains. Agriculture fields of Uttar Pradesh at daybreak on the night train. An ancient city in Egypt at sunset. They make me think not of the places past but of what it is to collect memory and reorganize it for others. They make me wonder what remains and what is to come.

I must resolve what I wish to say to – and for – myself with photographs I have yet to make. They must exist with no larger purpose. They may or may not go into magazines and exhibitions, yet they must exist nonetheless. For it seems that I must do this for the sake of the boy at the window of his family home, imagining the world not as it is, but how it slots into the puzzle of his heart.

Mustafah Abdulaziz is part of »Guest Room: Boaz Levin & Sophia Greiff«.

Check out his Artist Feature Water.