The Art of Fashion
Harper’s BAZAAR sits down with fine art photographer Nadirah Zakariya as we talk about finding her voice, inspiration and courage through photography.
For Nadirah Zakariya, art has played a significant role in her life from a very young age. “My family moved to Texas when I was eight years old and I spoke zero English,” the KL lass starts, recalling her childhood. “For the first few months, art class was the only place where language was not a barrier and I was able to express myself freely without the use of words. So I knew early on that I wanted to become an artist.” But it would take another few years before she discovered the perfect medium with which to express her artistic self, a realisation that arrived when she set foot on another foreign land. “After spending my secondary school years in Bandar Baru Bangi, I had the opportunity to live in Japan for one year on an exchange student program. It was life-changing. Again, I didn’t speak the language (but) that was when photography started to pique my interest. I felt the need to photograph anything and everything.”
What began as an interest would eventually grow into a very serious pursuit, as Nadirah enrolled in The Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia to study fine arts before obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
“I just love how photography allows me to be brave and fearless,” the 36-year-old admits. “I feel like I can do just about anything as long as I have a camera in my hands.” For Nadirah, who is living with vitiligo, the medical condition that results in patches of depigmented areas developing over one’s skin, that bravery and fearlessness paved the way to self-acceptance. “I used to photograph a lot of self-portraits as a way to understand myself deeper and to come to terms with my skin condition. Self-portrait photography can be a very empowering way for self-acceptance and I believe it is something I will always continue to explore as I grow older.”
Capturing portraits, self or otherwise, has become something of a forte for Nadirah, an inclination perhaps born out of her visceral relationship with photography. “I shoot with my heart first,” she says, “so my approach is very emotional and intuitive. It’s difficult to define what my style is but I guess it’s very feminine and almost like glimpses of scenes within a dream.”
Nadirah was invited to stage her very first solo exhibition in New York back in 2011. Titled ‘Daughters Ago’, her series of portraits explored the relationship between sisters, capturing their bond and intimate connection bathed in a dreamy glow of natural light. She has since gone on to showcase her work in exhibitions across the globe, including in London, Paris, Milan and of course Kuala Lumpur. In October of last year, some of her photographs were shown at the Bunkamura Museum in Shibuya for the Tokyo Curiosity 2020 exhibition. One very impressive professional highlight came in 2018 when she was hired by Bloomberg to follow and capture images of then prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamad, for a day during his first 100 days in office.
"ART CLASS WAS THE ONLY PLACE WHERE LANGUAGE WAS NOT A BARRIER AND I WAS ABLE TO EXPRESS MYSELF FREELY WOTHOUT THE USE OF WORDS"
-NADIRAH ZAKARIYA
Though she is a natural at capturing people as her subject matter, more recently she has turned her attention to something even closer to fine art. “Lately I find myself drawn to photographing flowers and still life. There’s something beautiful and profound about flowers, about how temporary their beauty is.” Even with still life, her approach translates her understanding of portraiture to inanimate objects, as evident in her works for the photography exhibition ‘Unsmoke: Through the Lenses of Malaysians’ organised by Philip Morris Malaysia in late 2019. Her floral portraits unfold like visual poetry, depicting flowers seemingly growing out of ashtrays and stretching upwards in an obvious mimicry of swirling smoke, to illustrate the potential beauty of an environment free from cigarette smoke.
Flowers continued to inspire her when the Movement Control Order (MCO) was first enforced nationwide in March of last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Capturing images of flowers was one of the ways she used to cope with the initial sense of isolation experienced by Malaysians throughout lockdown.
This month, one year later, at a time when we are allowed some measure of freedom to move freely, Harper’s BAZAAR has invited Nadirah Zakariya to share her art with our readers. The task at hand is to produce a series of photographs depicting luxury as the ultimate indulgence in a world mid-pandemic, with jewellery from Bvlgari as her subject matter. “I’m honoured and excited!” she beams, barely containing her joy. “It’s not every day that I get a job to express myself freely for a magazine. I do like to challenge myself with something new, and I see this as one way to merge fine art with something editorial and commercial. I’m ecstatic.”
Not that she’s a complete stranger to commercial work, mind. Apart from photography, Nadirah is also adept with the moving image. She is the co-founder of Layar Lucida, a female-led creative studio with a primary focus in film and photography-related projects that has seen her directing and producing music videos and commercials. Her portfolio alone reads like a who’s who of the entertainment industry, having had the chance to direct music videos for no less than Dato’ Sri Siti Nurhaliza, Dayang Nurfaizah, Joe Flizzow, NJWA, Fazura, Brian See and Singaporean singer, Aisyah Aziz. On the commercial side of things, just last year alone Layar Lucida has produced campaigns for Netflix Malaysia, McDonald’s Malaysia, Herbal Essences and L’Oreal Paris Malaysia.
Still, one can sense that her first love will always be photography. In fact, she is also the co-founder of Exposure+ Photo, a Kuala Lumpur citywide photography exhibition scheduled to take place this September. Even on her days off, Nadirah spends her time conducting workshops to share her knowledge and expertise in photography with the public.
“Photography is very important to me,” she emphasises. “It gives me a sense of purpose. Each time I think about quitting photography to pursue something else, I always find myself back to photography, and falling in love with it all over again.”
When asked how she would describe photography, she replies, “For me, photography is when science meets emotions, and that’s when the magic happens.” And here, the magic starts just over the next page.
“I JUST LOVE HOW PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWS ME TO BE BRAVE AND FEARLESS. I FEEL LIKE I CAN DO JUST ABOUT ANYTHING AS LONG AS I HAVE A CAMERA IN MY HANDS.” — NADIRAH ZAKARIYA