Four photographers ‘Click for a Cause’

Traditional marketplaces of Qatar offer as enriching an experience and as terrific a value to shoppers as they do to photographers hunting for the most vivid depictions of culture, heritage, and beautiful everyday moments.
The proof of this lies in countless Instagram feeds, in endless Facebook pages, or as Doha discovered on Wednesday evening, in the photographs of four astute Qatari photographers who set out to Souq Waqif and other traditional markets in Qatar and returned with interesting results.
Titled ‘A Click for a Cause’ – #ShangrilART, Shangri-La Hotel, Doha, marked the official opening of its first photography exhibition in the exhibition foyer at Level 2 of the hotel. By commissioning the four Qatari photographers to take photos that showcase the fascinating details of souqs, Shangri-La touts this to be one of many events through which it wants to cement the hotel’s “desired positioning as a patron for arts and culture especially in support of local Qatari talents.”
The most experienced of the lot is Rashed al-Mohannadi. A professional photographer with over 19 years of commercial experience, he has exhibited in several local and international photography and art exhibitions. His photographs of Souq Waqif, all in black and white, brim with masterful detailing – be it of a bunch of hanging tea kettles or that of a lady walking out of a corridor.
Writer, blogger and photographer, Tahani al-Hajri is a world traveller who likes to capture historical sites, cultural places, and traditional markets. The inspiration behind her “our past” collection is to introduce the traditional Qatari handcrafts to the younger generation and to encourage them to learn more about it and keep it alive for future generations. Her photos compel us to think beyond the usual symbolisms of what constitutes the traditional.
Nature and landscape photographer Khalid al-Shibli started photography only three years ago, something which his cleverly composed frames don’t give away. The inspiration behind al-Shibli’s Over the Souq collection is imagining the view from a falcon’s point of view while roaming curiously around the traditional buildings of Souq Waqif.
Al-Shibli told Community, “I like to use slow shutter speed to freeze movement. In an overhead photograph I made at the Souq Waqif, there’s a frozen swirl of people in the main street and also stationary people sitting at the cafes. It was a picture posted by a Chinese girl on Instagram that got me thinking of composing such a shot but much differently than she did.”
Ameera Radhi, currently a student at VCU-Q, is a curious photographer who loves to explore new things with no fear. She is also an amateur filmmaker and the founder of QomraQtr photography group and her goal is to “translate the thoughts to visual materials”. This collection reflects the ancient building with their unique walls while using the lines or sky to create light paints.
Al-Hajri told Community, “I like to highlight the traditional aspects of Qatar and the lesser-known insights into our culture through my photographs. That’s because most photographers today focus on the modern life, the glittering skylines and the fancy restaurants. In these pictures, I have tried to take the viewer deep into our culture. For instance, in a photograph of the stationary wheelbarrows, I want people to know that there are people depending only on that for a living, and in a photograph of the close-up of a man’s hand working on an old box, I want people to see the boxes we would use to store clothes before the wave of fancy furniture came in.”
Located in West Bay, the new Shangri-La Hotel Doha, which positions itself as the first high-end Asian luxury hotel in Qatar, brings together the renowned hospitality of Shangri-La with the time-honoured hospitality of the Arabian Gulf. Among other standout factors, the hotel features the largest pool deck within a business hotel in the West Bay area at over 2000 sqm with more than 70 trees for company, and CHI, The Spa, is the first Asian-themed spa in a luxury five-star hotel in Qatar offering an outdoor hydro-tonic pool.
The exhibition is open to the public from 6:30am to 11pm and 50 per cent of proceeds raised from the photographs’ sales will be donated to charity.