Back in December, Hasselblad sent me a camera to try. I had the H5D-50C, and two lenses: HC 50II MM and HC 80MM. It was absolutely amazing to use. The sound of the shutter alone is just.. ahhh.

Okay I won’t gush too much. I planned out a series of images specifically to create with that camera, and it was inspired by a Haruki Murakami quote:
“The storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. The storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it. There’s no sun, no moon, no direction, no sense of time.”

Also, I was interviewed on the Hasselblad website! I talk about the camera, photography, and dealing with depression. Check it out here: http://www.hasselblad.com/our-world/feature/feeding-the-evil-wolf

I created the whole series with the lovely Line Van Zyl, one of my good friends’ sister. She’s a ballerina and working with her was just so much fun. I took a few pictures of her dancing that I’ll be releasing soon. We did the whole shoot in my office because I wanted to use the black wall that I have there. I also have a huge window so I thought I’d only use natural light, but so much happened and by the time we started shooting I was losing light. Thankfully, Issa was there to assist and he had lights with him, so I ended up using a 5′ Profoto Octabank which he set up for me. I also rented a fog machine and fell in love with it and now I want to own one.

Issa was kind enough to set up his GoPro so we filmed the WHOLE day. We were shooting from 12pm to 12am. It was crazy. My CF card failed halfway through, so I ended up having to redo some of the pictures. Here’s 12 hours reduced into 5 minutes:

This series is created around the idea of the internal storms that are constantly raging inside us. Sometime we see them coming, but there is no shelter. With dread in our eyes we watch as it drags in. There’s no stopping it. It hits so suddenly, and even though we saw it coming, it ruins all that is good in us. Nothing stays there. And as soon as it came, it disappears. Leaving only a cloud of fog. We’re lost and confused. We’re scared. We don’t know where to go or how to find our way back, nothing is clear anymore. And we lose hope. We lose hope and believe that nothing will ever be okay. Even the beauty that lived on in our minds is wilting.
But just as fast as the storm hit, and just as we’re ready to give in to despair, a ray of light appears. Flowers grow out of our cracks. We see beauty again and we’re ready to face the world.

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There are a few other images that I shot with the Hasselblad and have already shared on instagram, but take a look here:

2014-2017 The Making Of amani alshaali conceptual conceptual photographer conceptual photography dubai photographer dubaiphotographer emirati artist emirati photographer events female photographer female photographer dubai fine art photographer fine art photography friends haruki murakami hasselblad hasselblad_official insecurities inspiration medium format photography photoshop photoshop edit self acceptance the making of thoughts