By Anand Holla
At her sprawling Beverly Hills Tower residence in West Bay, Lydia Shaw lounges on a couch and explains why her wide-ranging exploration of photography has always fuelled her fascination. “I love to shoot everything; portraits, commercial, interiors, travel. I don’t have a speciality. I will shoot anything from a Qatari wedding to kitchen interiors. It’s just the beauty of the image that keeps me at it,” she says.
One of the most sought-after freelance photographers in Qatar for commercial and corporate assignments, Shaw is limbering up for the busier part of the year – from October to May. When asked what she has learnt from her five years of photography here, she utters just four words: It is not easy.
“As a freelance photographer, I have to handle everything from finance, marketing, admin work, to, of course, shooting and post-production. I am basically a one-woman show. The clock doesn’t stop ticking on the work left to be done, and I don’t necessarily have weekends,” she says and smiles.
Some years ago, Shaw heard a working photographer say something, the complete truth of which has been dawning on her only recently. “He said there are a lot of great photographers around, but they are terrible businesspeople. And the ones that succeed may not be among the best but they know how to run a business and they keep that alive,” she says.
Luckily for Shaw, she knows as much about pushing her brand as she does about the many mysteries of off-camera lighting. Before the Australian got hooked on the camera, she worked as a Brand Project Manager for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, and even the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. “But I knew I didn’t want to do branding, marketing and events for the rest of my life,” she says.
Travelling, as it often does, rearranged her perspective. “My family and friends would love my travel pictures, and suggest I do something more about my photography,” she recalls. Eventually, in 2004, Shaw went to Queensland and signed up for a two-year Diploma of Photography where she learnt all about film and digital techniques and workflows.
“Before I finished the course, I was contacted by the Asian Games. I now had to make a decision – take up a photography job in Australia or move to Doha as the Brand Project Manager of the Asian Games,” Shaw says. Photography was destined to lurk in the shadows for a little longer.
However, Qatar proved to be the breeding ground for Shaw’s love affair with the camera. “I started shooting for Asian Games as well,” she says, “And once the Games ended, we decided to stay.” Shaw then took up a couple of branding jobs but photography began surfacing more frequently in her field of view, if you will, than she had thought.
“People were pushing me to do family portraits. I found Qatar to be a nice and easy place to start,” she says, “So I began shooting on the weekends, you know, family portraits indoors or with Doha as the background. As I began building my portfolio, I started loving what I was doing.” So she took a full-fledged plunge into it, shooting “bulldozers to puppies, helicopters to sand … and anything in between.”
One of Shaw’s first jobs, for instance, was in Doha’s Industrial Area where she had to capture warehouse scenarios of people welding or painting. “The challenge was to make it all look interesting,” she says, shrugging, “Around that time, I once found myself shooting some wells in the middle of a desert in North Qatar, and I had to make those wells look interesting.”
While Shaw enjoys juggling her shoots that range from new store interiors and architecture to commercial assignments and from working with international diplomats to shooting Qatari weddings, she loves to break the routine by holding classes on photography and post-production for beginners. “Good word of mouth has definitely helped me,” she says.
Usually, photographers stick to either of the top rival brands Canon or Nikon, but not Shaw. “I am a scrambled mess,” she says, laughing, “I started off with Canon and then turned to Nikon as well. I really can’t choose one. It’s like choosing between two children or something.” While her lens gear features the choicest of combinations, Shaw counts her super-wide 17mm tilt shift lens, the 24-70mm lens and the 70-200mm as her favourites.
Just as her pursuit of photography knows no partitioning, her sources of inspiration too are far-ranging. “I am inspired by all things creative. So I look everywhere for inspiration; from magazines to cookbooks to the Web. If an image grabs my attention, I try and learn from it; the striking composition, how the model has posed or the frame has been lit up. It’s about learning from what you pick, and practicing, and eventually your flavour and style will come through,” she says.
That said, if you still seek names, Shaw throws some at you: Joe Mc Nally, Lindsay Adler, Miss Aniela, Gregory Heisler and David Hobby (who writes the very popular blog on lighting techniques strobist.com). As for Instagram, which is luring even the photography purists by the thousands, Shaw acknowledges its force.
“I am terrible at Instagram,” she says, smiling, “It’s a genre on its own and it’s made its own place. However, you can make an image with anything. It doesn’t even have to be photographic. You can use alternative image processes by exposing light sensitive liquids. So you don’t need to have a camera device to create an image and find out what photography is.” As much as she enjoys shooting with her monstrous DSLRs, she wishes they get lighter. “That’s why I love mirrorless cameras. I took my mirrorless Fuji (35mm lens) to Vietnam for a six-week vacation last year. It was an amazing experience,” she says. What makes the “shooting holiday” truly amazing is that she went solo, without her husband, so that she could shoot to her heart’s fill.
“It was pure indulgence. Photography is a bit of a lonely job. You need time to get your pictures, and it’s boring to travel with photographers because they see the world differently,” says Shaw, who has travelled to 66 countries, “The perfect light will stop me in my tracks … simply to take it in. If I am with someone else, I get distracted as I can’t see the shots and there’s this pressure of not taking too long to get done.”
To work around this problem, Shaw often shares this vital piece of advice with her students: “The best light anywhere is early morning or late afternoon. So, if you are travelling with your family, get up before they do. Go out and shoot for an hour or two to have that headspace, and capture the pictures you want.”
At times, though, it gets painfully difficult to reinvent a frame. “My trouble with Souq Waqif, for instance,” she shares, “is that I have got old eyes. I have seen the Souq so many times. That’s what I like about travel photography – you are usually seeing things for the first time. I find it easier to shoot a new place, and spot my shots when I travel.”
Shaw is as unimpressed as anybody else is about some of the most cliched Doha shots. “The Doha skyline has been shot 10mn times,” she says, “There’s one hero angle on that skyline and everyone’s shot it. It’s really challenging to do it differently. That’s why it’s nice when you see someone shooting it in a different angle or using a unique foreground.” In such situations, Shaw keeps looking for a way out. “I first take the standard shot, you know the safe shot, and then keep trying to capture it differently.”
For Shaw, one of the coolest upshots of taking up an assortment of assignments is the experience itself, and the memories it leaves her with. One such memory that she knows will remain to be “a great memory of Qatar” for her, happened around a couple of years ago. “Father Emir was present for the opening of a hospital. Once the formalities were done with, he started casually mixing with the staff,” Shaw recalls.
Within moments, the entire staff had swarmed him. “Everybody was taking selfies with him, and he was hugging children and giving them candies. It was such an unexpected, spontaneous moment, and everyone was having a superb time. There was a lot of infectious joy and love all around,” she says.
