Zaheer Chaudhry Photography

5. Contact

CONTACT:

Dubai +971 58 629 7570

Pakistan +92 333 4319807

email: zaheerchaudhry.zc@gmail.com

Social media: Facebook - Instagram - X

Main Blogspot

Zaheer Chaudhry is a Pakistani photographer and visual artist based between Lahore, Pakistan, and Dubai, UAE. With more than twenty-five years of photographic practice, his work explores observation, memory, environment and place through conceptual and environmental photography.

His photographic interests centre on overlooked landscapes, everyday environments, roadside spaces, architectural traces, light, shadow, reflection, texture and traces of human presence. Walking, travel and field observation form an integral part of his practice, which has developed an evolving archive of more than 300,000 photographs.

Chaudhry approaches photography as a method of inquiry rather than simply documentation. His photographs often become points of departure for further visual exploration through digital works, painting, immersive experiences, mixed media and installation. He is particularly interested in how cropping, scale, printing, material and context can transform an observed fragment into a new visual experience.

He studied Fine Arts and Geography at Government College University (GCU), Lahore, completing his Intermediate in 1999, and graduated in Fine Arts Foundation and Design from the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, in 2004.

His photographic work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Pakistan and internationally, including Listen To Her at PNCA, Islamabad (2024), Living The Moment in Gilgit (2023), Fly On The Wall at PNCA, Islamabad (2024), Photo Place, Vermont, USA (2024), and Beyond DNA 2 at Studio RM, Tanzara Art Gallery, Islamabad (2025).

His photographic recognition includes the Niggah Award for Creative Photography (2026), Your Choice / National Geographic Magazine Editor Award (2018) for Street Photography and Creative Photography, Pakistan's First Photojournalism Awards (2012) in the Independent Photographer category, and a National Geographic Hong Kong Photography Awards nomination in Creative Photography.

His first photographic coffee-table book, Beyond the Valley(s), was published by ORCO in March 2026. His photographic work and projects have also been featured by BBC Urdu, Voice of America, Dawn, The News, Geo News, Pakistan Television, Samaa TV, and Express Tribune.

Through photography, Chaudhry continues to explore how ordinary places become carriers of memory, perception and visual knowledge.

2. Photographer's Statement

PHOTOGRAPHER'S STATEMENT

Every image begins with an act of attention.

My photographic practice has grown from a lifelong curiosity about the environments around me. I am drawn to what often escapes attention: overlooked landscapes, roadside spaces, architectural traces, shadows, reflections, textures, changing seasons, fragments of human presence, and the quiet relationships between people and place.

Photography for me begins before the camera. A moment is first noticed, felt or remembered; the camera then becomes a way of holding that experience. I do not approach photography simply as documentation. I use the image as a form of inquiry to observe, collect, question and return to moments that may otherwise disappear.

Walking and travelling are central to this process. For more than two decades, movement through cities, villages, fields, wetlands, roads, mountains and public spaces has allowed me to build an evolving photographic archive of more than 300,000 images. I see this archive not as a collection of finished photographs, but as a living record of observation. Returning to familiar places often reveals something different as light, time, people, seasons and memory change.

I am particularly interested in the relationship between the visible and the overlooked. A shadow can become a document; an abandoned wall can carry traces of lives; a small fragment can become a landscape through scale. The camera selects a frame from a much larger environment, but the photograph does not end there. Cropping, printing, enlargement, colour, material and context can transform how an image is experienced.

For this reason, photography often becomes a starting point rather than a destination. Photographic images may move into digital works, painting, immersive experiences, mixed media, installation and other forms of visual translation. These shifts allow me to reconsider the image beyond the screen or conventional photographic frame.

My work moves between documentation and abstraction, evidence and imagination, memory and discovery. An image may preserve a moment from the past, yet years later it can generate a completely new reading. Sometimes a photograph becomes a time machine, returning an earlier place to the present; at other times, an old image creates an imagination that did not exist when it was made.

I am interested in this space between seeing and noticing. Seeing may be shared, but noticing is personal an inner mathematics through which each person selects, connects and gives meaning to the world.

Ultimately, photography is my way of remaining curious. I photograph not because the world has already given me an answer, but because I continue to wonder about what is already there.

Zaheer Chaudhry

3. Photography CV

EXHIBITIONS

'DNA 2', group show by Studio RM at Tanzara Art Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan, 2025
‘Landscape’ online group show by PhotoPlace, Middlebury Gallery, USA. 2024
‘Listen To Her’ Solo show at PNCA, Islamabad. 2024
‘Fly On the Wall’ Group show at PNCA, Islamabad. 2024
‘The Art Show’ The Art Den, Dubai. 2024
‘Living The Moment’ Solo show at Sivana Restaurant, Gilgit. 2023
Five Travelers. Group Show at Art Next Project, Lahore. 2023
‘Curating The Curators’ Group Show at Rangrez Art Gallery. Lahore. 2022
‘Sleeves’ Metaverse Biennale at Tawfik Hall, Dubai. 2022
‘Unheard/ Picturing Time’ Online group show at O-Art Space. 2021
‘Surkh/ Red’ Group show at Alhamra Art Council, Lahore. 2019
‘Visual Stories’ The Keyboard 1/5. Group show. Carriers and Barriers. Zahoor Ul Akhlaq Gallery NCA. 2019
‘Fading Connections’ Group show at Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (PILAC) Lahore. 2018
‘Creative Moment’ Group show at Shakir Ali Museum, Lahore. 2017
‘Sleeves / Dissolving Edges’ 6TH THAAP Conference, Lahore. 2016
‘Roshni Tou Tum Bhi Ho’ Group show at Fortress Square Mall, Lahore. Nomad Art and Center Islamabad. Balochistan Art Gallery, Quetta. Sardar Bahadur Khan
Women's University Quetta. 2016
‘Mountain Valleys of Pakistan’ Group show at International Islamic University, Islamabad. 2015
‘Eclipses’ The 11th International Collage Exhibition/Exchange, Okato, New Zealand. 2009
‘Memories’ World Art Foundation Expo. California. USA. 2009
‘Shedding Load’ Gallery 39K, Lahore. 2009
‘Wetlands’ Young Artist Show. Alhamra Art Council, Lahore. 2007,2008, 2009
‘Memories’ Sadiqain Awards Show, Karachi Art Council, Karachi. 2008
‘Tadbeer/ Taqdeer’ REDO PAKISTAN, Paper publication in Karachi, Lahore, Dhaka and London. 2007

ARTIST TALKS

Creativity. Global College of Sciences, Fatima U Zahra Campus, Choa Saidan Shah. 2022
Creative Photography and Digital Art. Govt Degree College Sibi, Baluchistan. 2021
Design and Tourism. UCP – University of Central Punjab, Faisalabad. 2020
Creative Photography. KIU Gilgit, Media & Communication Dept. 2017
Creativity and Photojournalism. Sardar Bahadur Khan University, Quetta. 2016
Sleeves/ Dissolving Edges. 6TH THAPP Conference, Lahore. 2016

CURATORIAL PRACTICES

‘Living The Moment’ Solo show at Sivana Restaurant, Gilgit. 2023
‘Surkh/ Red’ Group show at Alhamra Art Council, Lahore. 2019
‘Knocking At Window’ A series of Pakistan’s first online photography exhibitions. 2019
‘Roshni Tou Tum Bhi Ho’ A series of group shows in Lahore, Quetta and Islamabad. 2017
‘Mountains Valleys of Pakistan’ Group show at International Islamic University, Islamabad. 2015
‘Carbon Roadside Arts’ A series of Pakistan’s first roadside photography exhibitions/installations, workshops and film screenings in rural the areas.

CARBON ROADSIDE ARTS (CRSA)

Carbon Roadside Arts, a project by Orange Concepts (ORCO) Pakistan, has curated over 500
photography exhibitions, Art workshops, and film screenings in the rural areas of Pakistan.

Artist Statement

Every image begins with an act of attention.

I am interested in what often escapes attention: the quiet language of everyday landscapes, the shifting relationship between light and shadow, fragments of architecture, traces of human presence, and the cultural memory embedded within ordinary places. Rather than searching for extraordinary subjects, I cultivate sustained attention toward the familiar, believing that every environment carries stories that emerge only through careful looking.

Observation is not simply the beginning of my practice;

it is the practice itself.

Photography is my primary medium, but it is not my destination. I approach image-making as a process of inquiry rather than documentation. The camera functions as a research tool, one that allows me to observe, collect, question, and translate visual experience into photographs, mixed-media works, public interventions, installations, and visual archives. I am interested less in recording the visible world than in understanding how images shape our perception of memory, place, ecology, and culture.

For more than two decades, continuous travel, field observation, and engagement with diverse communities have informed an evolving archive of more than 300,000 photographs. This archive is not a collection of completed works but a living body of visual research. It allows me to return repeatedly to landscapes, cities, villages, wetlands, roads, and public spaces, discovering how they transform through time, light, human activity, and memory. Every return reveals another layer of the familiar.

This philosophy also forms the foundation of Carbon Roadside Arts, the travelling initiative I founded in 2006. Conceived as a platform for art, education, and cultural dialogue, the project extends artistic practice beyond galleries into villages, schools, streets, gardens, and public spaces throughout Pakistan. Through more than 500 public photography exhibitions and community-based programmes reaching over 200,000 viewers, the initiative reflects my belief that art belongs wherever people live and that creativity becomes most meaningful when shared collectively.

My work moves between documentation and abstraction, archive and interpretation, evidence and imagination. I do not seek definitive answers; instead, I create images that encourage slower forms of looking and invite viewers to reconsider what they thought they already knew. I believe the ordinary is never ordinary. Every landscape, object, and gesture contains histories that become visible only through sustained observation.

Ultimately, I understand image-making as a form of knowledge production. Images do not simply illustrate ideas, they generate them. Observation becomes research, research becomes image, and image becomes a space where memory, ecology, culture, and imagination intersect.

Islamabad Post - Fly on the Wall

Islamabad POST

Visual Stories

"The Ghost Of Ignorance" Chiniot
"Flood Of Light" Bar, Nagar
"Deception" Miani Sahib, Lahore
"Shadow Has No Choice" Sibi
"Eternal Ties" Pakpattan 
"Good Bye" Nankana Sahib
"Hall Of Frames" Lahore, were presented on the show curated by Aasim Akhtar at PNCA Islamabad 

TRIBUNE - Fly on the Wall

TRIBUNE

DAWN - Fly On The Wall

DAWN

01 The Grammar of Seeing - Statement

THE NEWS - NIGAAH AWARDS 2026

Reel - THE NEWS

Unheard 009

The NCA Archives: Witness to Time

Curating Memory: Zaheer Chaudhry's Curatorial Practice in An Exhibition of The NCA Archives: Witness to Time

The National College of Arts (NCA) marked its glorious 150th year with Pakistan’s first-ever Triennale an event envisioned and realized by its alumni, alongside teachers and students.

As part of The NCA Triennale 2025, the archival exhibition An Exhibition of The NCA Archives: Witness to Time stood as a significant tribute to the 150-year legacy of the National College of Arts, Lahore. Conceived as a journey through the institution's artistic and educational history, the exhibition traced NCA's evolution from the Mayo School of Arts, established in 1875, to its position today as Pakistan's premier institution for art and design education.

Produced and curated by the Department of Multimedia Arts, NCA, in collaboration with the Archives Department, NCA, the exhibition brought together a remarkable collection of archival documents, historical photographs, rare publications, student works, and institutional records. Collectively, these materials narrated a century and a half of artistic practice, craftsmanship, pedagogy, and cultural production.

Within this broader curatorial framework, Zaheer Chaudhry's curatorial practice centered on the relationship between archive, architecture, and viewer. His contribution focused on developing a spatial language through which historical materials could be experienced beyond their documentary value. Rather than treating the archive as a static repository of preserved objects, the curatorial approach sought to activate it as a living site of memory, dialogue, and contemporary engagement.

Installed within the newly constructed Postgraduate Block at NCA Lahore, the exhibition presented an opportunity to explore the interplay between historical content and contemporary architectural space. One of the defining curatorial decisions was the presentation of archival material against the building's raw grey cement walls. Instead of masking the unfinished surfaces, the exhibition embraced them as an integral part of the visual narrative.

The exposed concrete walls possessed a material honesty that resonated deeply with the archival objects they supported. Historical photographs, vintage artworks, handwritten records, and institutional documents appeared as traces of time embedded within a structure that itself represented a new chapter in the institution's history. The handcrafted textures of the walls echoed the traditions of making, labour, and craftsmanship that have shaped NCA since its origins as the Mayo School of Arts.

For Zaheer Chaudhry, the challenge was not simply the arrangement of historical artefacts but the creation of meaningful relationships between objects, surfaces, and spatial experience. The orientation of the archival collection was carefully considered to establish a visual rhythm that corresponded with the architectural character of the venue. Through this process, the walls became more than a backdrop; they became active participants in the exhibition's narrative structure.

The juxtaposition of archival material with the raw architectural environment generated a compelling dialogue between past and present. Historical records appeared neither nostalgic nor distant. Instead, they were recontextualized within a contemporary setting that encouraged visitors to reconsider the relevance of institutional memory in the present moment. The archive became an immersive experience rather than a chronological display, inviting reflection on continuity, transformation, and cultural inheritance.

Visitors encountered a carefully choreographed sequence of visual narratives that revealed the evolution of artistic education and creative practice across generations. The exhibition transformed historical material into an experiential encounter, allowing audiences to engage with the institution's legacy through both intellectual inquiry and sensory perception.

The curatorial concept received considerable appreciation from the Triennale team as well as from visitors, who responded positively to the integration of archival content within the unfinished architectural setting. The harmony between the archival collection and the textured surfaces of the venue demonstrated how exhibition design can expand the interpretive potential of historical material while preserving its authenticity.

More than an exhibition of documents and artefacts, Witness to Time became a reflection on memory, preservation, and the enduring significance of art education in shaping cultural histories. Through thoughtful spatial intervention and a sensitivity to material context, Zaheer Chaudhry's curatorial practice contributed to transforming the archive into a living experience, one that connected generations of artists, students, and viewers across a span of 150 years.

In witnessing the archive, visitors were not merely looking at history; they were inhabiting it.