ROOTS

 We see a lot of people every day but we do not know anything about them, like who they are or where they are from and what is their story. ‘Roots’ is a collection of portraits I took during my project about Muslims who left their home country and permanently settled in Preston, England. Once I had this conversation with a man who was born in the UK but his parents were from Pakistan. I remember him saying how hard it is for him to find an identity when his roots belongs to another country. I think this incident influenced me to go for this project.

I found a lot of Muslims in Preston whose roots belongs to another country. It is hard for them to find their own place and identity when they are permanently moved to another country that is different from their language, culture, clothing etc. My main intention of this project was

• To find out what made these people leave their home country and move into another country.

• To find out how did they reach or end up in Preston (The Journey).

• To tell their story with their photographs (Kind of Narrative Photography).

The shoots I did for this project are well constructed according to the availability of light. Some of them are out doors and some indoors. The subject is aware that being photographed. Sometimes they face the camera and sometimes they look away from it. This process reminded me some of August Sander’s portraits. I have used 35mm F1.8 prime lens throughout this project. It really helped me to isolate the subject and get more attention.

I was really looking for the back story of these people but I could not find anyone with an interesting one. I have decided to continue this project on my own and find more people with interesting backstory.