Movement in Fragments

Mo tion in frag ments

MOVEMENT IN FRAGMENTS All content Š 2012 Atif Abu-Samra All rights reserved worldwide CONTACT INFORMATION w: http://atif.abu-samra.com fb: http://facebook.com/atif.photography e: atif@abu-samra.com t: +971 55 956 2843

In the absence of a more coherent and businesslike approach, I am keeping my introduction free, allowing it to take whichever form it will, like a piece of alabaster in the hands and at a mercy of a sculptor.

So here, I give you my alabaster...

I was born in Khartoum, Sudan – in the middle of the summer.

If it was up to me, I would have chosen February. They say February in Sudan is the best time of year. I wouldn’t know.

I never lived there. Shortly after I was born, I was taken to Belgrade, which was then still the capital of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I was brought up there with all the advantages, disadvantages and freedoms that come with such a political system. Half way through my teenage years I accompanied my mother to London, where she was posted for work.

There, I graduated from the University College with a first class degree in civil engineering and an award for the best overall engineering design performance. Afterward, riding on a wave of my college successes, I spent years working as a maritime engineer, as a bridge designer and as a high rise buildings structural engineer. But that wasn’t to be foreverand, and as a friend of mine once said, "if you have the art bug, you can never get rid of it".

She was right.

In 2010, I abandoned my full time employment to follow my heart. Now, I work as a freelance photographer and I love it.

My work includes a variety of photographs and digital images related to fashion, beauty, architecture, urban spaces and aspects of life that surround me, or rather my perception thereof. I am grateful that, regardless of the years spent engineering structures, my need for a creative expression persisted throughout – that the art bug survived – and that now I’m finally free from the chains of an apparent certainty of a daily routine.

Having plunged headlong into the abyss of photography, I feel that I am now finally me.

Atif Abu-Samra Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2011.

All images and photographs in this book © 2012 Atif Abu-Samra.

All rights reserved worldwide.

Mo tion in frag ments It’s always exceptional when you see someone undoubtedly enjoying his work. Atif posses that kind of passion when it comes to photography. Coming from a highly technical background, being a civil engineer, you’ll notice his impeccable detailing in every one of his photographs, both when it comes to original composition and post production.

Variety of themes and styles shows off the rich talent and originality neatly packed in a high quality product you see at the end. Artistically, Atif displays an impulse characteristic to himself. Browsing through his work, you’ll find everyday settings seen through a different lens and veiled tales to be told over and over again. Being a Copywriter, it is always crucial to have smashing storytelling partners to carry on the ideas and all hidden layers of the work that has to be more then words and visuals. I highly recommend Atif for possessing that kind of an eye.

Tijana Vukojicic, December 2011 Belgrade, Serbia

Come, kiss me, she said. Like you did that year. A year long gone and long forgotten.

A year lost somewhere along those winding, hilly streets of once glorious city. A year I let trickle out through an orifice in my gut and drip upon dusty sidewalks. Dark, dense, liquid like. Not honey, not blood, not sweat. A pool of oily, scented, sticky liquid stretched out across the city. Upon those concrete stairs, by the kiosk and on the park bench, by the river, upon the black metal gate, upon sweaty kitchen floors, outside the window, and who’d-know-where-not... Mark upon mark, upon mark.

Every inch of the city inside a year, each single second of it inside my gut that now stretches across dusty city sidewalks.

I am an animal, she said. A beast. A wounded beast. I am a beast and, you... what are you?

A firey ghost inside this empty space.

Charcoal substance upon these walls that prop me. A pillar that holds and burns this flesh and bone that sculpt me.

Kiss me, she said.

w: http://atif.abu-samra.com fb: http://facebook.com/atif.photography e: atif@abu-samra.com t: +971 55 956 2843 MOVEMENT IN FRAGMENTS All content Š 2012 Atif Abu-Samra. All rights reserved worldwide.