I was an ordinary law student from Kota Bharu who loves photography. How could I have won one of the world’s most prestigious photography competition?
The announcement of the Hasselblad Masters Awards 2018 came to my email. So I looked at the name of the sender and quickly Google-d to check his identity, but I still had doubts. Only when my name and photographs was published on the Hasselblad website did I really believe that I had in fact won the under 21 category project!
When I was in Form 2, I watched a documentary about Pete Souza, the official photographer for Barack Obama on National Geographic. There was a particular photo of President Obama in a black and white frame, and that spoke volume to me. I just sat there, on my family room sofa and kept staring at that frame.
It was my father who then suggested that I try my hands on photography. A couple of days later, he bought me a small digital camera – which at the time was all we could afford; and he asked me to take pictures of our family, our friends and our home. That was my first venture with the lens and ‘that something’ that added fire to my passion for photography.
A few years later, when I was in Form 4; I entered the very first photography competition of my life. It was organised by UNICEF and The Star, and the theme was ‘children’. So I sent a picture of my cousins playing by the sea side in Terengganu.
To my surprise, I was picked as a finalist and my picture was published in The Star. Being picked as a finalist was the stimulus that pulled me deeper into photography and I realised that there is so much more I need to learn to excel in this field.
Entering myself for the Hasselblad Masters Awards was just a lucky coincidence. I had just finished my SPM exams and had some free time on hand. Because I am quite an introvert, socialising is not big on my list and I turned to my camera. At that time, I had also sold my digital camera and bought a second hand DSLR camera.
To play around with my ‘new’ camera and lens, I was hanging out with my friends at a taman (park) nearby. One day we came across an abandoned house. Feeling curious, we entered the house.
On one wall there was a lot of graffiti. It gave out a mysterious hue bathed in the light that was streaming from a window. I had never played around with a natural light setting like this, so I asked my friend to be my model and pose.
We tried to recreate a scene of a drug addict who was trying to escape from the world of substances and lust, but was pulled back into the vicious drug cycle again. That was my project which won me the Hasselblad Masters Awards.”
Photo and story by Nafisa Dahodwala
Edited by Christine Cheah
________________________________________
This story is written in collaboration with the Kuala Lumpur International Arts Festival 2018. Nabil Rosman is the official winner of the Hasselblad Masters Awards 2018 for photography project under age of 21. He will be flying to Germany at the end of the month to receive this honour.
His work for KLIAF 2018 is entitled ‘Streets of KL’ and can be seen on digital billboards across the city.
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on October 21st 2018)
