Introduce yourself: tell us who you are in a couple sentences.
Tasneem is an investigative photographer, storyteller and global traveller. With an inquisitive eye and camera at hand, she offers intimate and unique perspectives into the everyday lives of her subjects, telling their stories from her heart while striving to humanize and connect their realities to her audiences.
What is your earliest memory with photography?
I remember asking for a “real” adult camera when I was nine. I received a cheap film camera from the local pharmacy, and took it on my school trip to the zoo. 25 photos were of cows, and the remaining 5 were of my face or feet.
What has been your career path and how has your world experiences (family upbringing, travel, education) influenced the photographic work you do today?
My parents were pursuing their education abroad, so I was born in the US, and moved to England at the age of 6. Moving back to Saudi at the age of 16, I realized that I’d never felt native or local to any society that I was living in. I was always an outsider, even in Saudi, as I had an accent and dressed and acted differently than my classmates. This realization, pushed me to study social linguists and social anthropology. Although I had a camera since I was nine, I never would have dreamt of taking up photography as a career. Instead, I became a lecturer at university for four years, and photographing my own daughters, then my friends children and families. This later expanded to my documenting weddings locally, and somehow expanded to internationally. A theme or style raised in most of the sessions and the weddings, there’s always a story. I fell in love with each bride’s story, and saw it as a visual feast of narratives. I now see each project and assignment as a wedding — a story with lots of mini details and interactions.
What motivates you to continue taking pictures?
I try to find the points in a person or story I’m photographing that I can relate to. Once I have something to love, respect, appreciate, I know I’m emotionally invested.
In one sentence describe why you do the work that you do:
I’m a photographer/visual storyteller because I feel strongly about challenging stereotypical perceptions of the Middle East and portraying a region and people that do not conform to expectations.
About the Project
How did this project come about? Why were you interested in it?
I began working on this project because I had a personal story I wanted to share. I was married at 17 years old and found myself living as a single parent for the last six years of an unhappy 10 year marriage. Many family members told me how foolish I was to ask for a divorce. Only later did I realize that there were many Saudi women who had similar experiences .
With each story, I found more women sharing complex experiences with marriage. I followed the stories of widows, the happily married and divorced women. I explored the concept of love, photographing my young daughter and grandmother. Utilizing imagery (with permission from the bride whose weddings I photographed) I interlaced the construction and expectation of marriage through often elaborate wedding ceremony imagery and rituals. A theme emerged with the women I photographed: they all overcame the many hurdles that were laid out by society or/and state.
Pick one photo from your series to deconstruct: what was happening when you took the shot? Set the scene, what was going through your head?
I love working on collaborative portraits. The women I tend to photograph have stories that are sensitive to share among our society, so it’s a big honor and responsibility to ensure that they’re safe, comfortable and also confident. If I had to share one photo, it would be of Mai (above). After staying with her, and her two children, for a few days we all discussed how to best include her late husband in a photo. Mai wore her wedding dress that she wore more than 14 years ago, and sat near natural light. Her son wore the motorcycle helmet his father had been wearing. He resembled his father so much, and the moment was extremely emotional. Our eyes full of tears, we felt both an elation and a sense of sadness. Mai shared that this was therapeutic, and I couldn’t agree more.
What did you learn from this project/series?
That we share so many universal themes when it comes to love, loss, marriage, and death. We weep and celebrate in such a similar way. Also, that Saudi women are some of the strongest women I’ve ever met. So many of them may seem to conform to the expectations of society, but in fact yet never cease to stop themselves from doing everything they set their minds to.
To see and learn more about Tasneem and her work follow her on Instagram and check out her website.