THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY

OSTORY BY PATRICIA GROVES

nly a photographer with such an aspiration can reach the heights of the art and keep on climbing higher. Khalid’s remark that believing there is a better picture just around the corner is inspiring. It is a belief that sparkles with expectation and leads him onward.

For his fourteenth birthday, Khalid’s older brother gave him an Olympus camera. Khalid did not use his new gift to take pictures randomly as most young teenagers would; instead he set out to document family life in an historical vein. As time passed, Khalid took an interest in landscape photography and began to story-board the scenic beauty of his homeland in deserts, mountains, plains and coasts.

Bearing in mind a penetrating remark by the famous twentieth-century photographer Ansel Adams, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it”, Khalid took on board the importance of both the aesthetic and technical aspects of photography, setting out to develop his art through Google searches, photography magazines and experiential trial and error. Khalid discovered the creative possibilities of 2005 Adobe Photoshop which remains a staple in his toolbox, along with Adobe Lightroom and Photo Mechanic.

By the time he enrolled in the Photography programme at Muscat’s Higher College of Technology, this self-taught photographer was more passionate than ever about his craft and keen to learn in a teaching environment. In his graduating year, Khalid was awarded a New Media & Journalism fellowship at Washington State University where he explored different social media platforms and how they affect people. Khalid took advantage of every opportunity to advance and share his skills, including creating his own website www.khalidalbusaidi.com and @khalid_albusaidi, his Instagram platform.

A watershed came with Khalid Al Busaidi’s appointment as the official photographer for the Royal Opera House Muscat. Understanding the potential scope of the position, Khalid formulated a mission for his work. It would not be simply to supply pictures for the media, but to document the history and evolution of an institution of prime importance to the cultural advancement of the country and to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said’s quest for world harmony. Khalid remarked: “I want to honour His Majesty’s Royal Opera House and the works of great artists like Puccini and Verdi in the most beautiful way that I possibly can”.

Khalid Al Busaidi embraced with open arms what were for him entirely new forms of art, particularly opera and ballet, researching each production beforehand for a richer, more knowing experience of the performance. In particular, he became an informed fan of the operas of Puccini and Verdi and came to appreciate the music of Wagner in ways that few people of his background and generation would.

The Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra had familiarised the Omani public with symphonic music; and for Khalid this was an entry into a deepening appreciation of the great orchestras and conductors of the world. Khalid explains that Ballet is the most difficult of the major performing arts to photograph, but it is clear that he has become adept at seamlessly capturing dancers in motion, as evident in his stunningly beautiful picture of a dancer in flight in Anna Karenina.

He has closely witnessed and documented more than 500 ROHM performances. Khalid’s ROHM photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Forbes and magazines across Europe, gaining global exposure for ROHM and Oman. On a personal level, Khalid can count many of the stars who have performed at ROHM among his followers on Instagram. One of Khalid’s favourite stars is the famed Arab singer, Kadim Al Sahir. Khalid is thrilled that Al Sahir uses one of his photographs as an official branding icon. Featured in all Kadim AlSahir publicity, it appears on the back of buses throughout the Arab World.

Khalid comments that the emotional and spiritual enrichment he has experienced in his seven years at the Royal Opera House Muscat has immensely broadened his life beyond its walls, changing his perceptions and feelings about life. Indeed, the world becomes a realm infused with the joyous blessing of simultaneously capturing and enacting creativity. Like the artists he photographs, in daily life, Khalid experiences and is elevated by aesthetic manifestations lying within the mundane world that others normally overlook.

Khalid ventured out from behind the scenes into the public light when in the spring of 2015, he decided to hold an exhibition of his photographs with the intent of promoting the Royal Opera House Muscat in images that capture the excitement and artistry of action on stage. He also wanted to introduce those who had not seen the performances depicted, or indeed any performances, to the pleasures of experiencing world-class performing arts in their own city. The signature picture in the exhibition was a lushly gorgeous kaleidoscopic image from the 2013 Macerata Opera Festival production of La Traviata in which a vast slanted mirror reflected scenes on stage. In a spectrum of beautiful colours, the sumptuous silk gowns of high society ladies were captured by Khalid and displayed in a cinematic canvas as if painted by the music.

In the near future, Khalid hopes to further advance his mission by holding an exhibition abroad to help promote the Royal Opera House Muscat on a global scale. Meanwhile, Khalid embarks on international travel as a way of enhancing his array of crosscultural perspectives, and has had the good fortune of seeing two of the stars he met at ROHM perform in their homelands (at the Met in New York and a theatre in Mexico City) where the cultural contexts are different, but the enthusiasm and joy of audiences is universal.