Naser Bayat

My way into photography started a long time ago when I was a child in Kabul, Afghanistan. My parents bought a simple Sony digital camera and it fascinated me immediately, but I never wanted to be in front of it. Instead, I found that my main interest was behind the camera; I was taking photographs of my family and everything around me, exploring the world through my lens. Later on, when I grew up and moved to Finland, I found myself in a different world of Nordic minimalism. 

I started taking minimalistic images with my iPhone. In the beginning, the main subjects in my photographs were buildings, traffic signs, the sky, birds, and nature. Later on, people became the main subjects in my photographs, and I feel their inclusion make the pictures come alive. In my estimation, photographing people in the streets is about communicating with real human beings and learning who they actually are. Because people cannot hide behind social masks while walking along a street, it is possible to capture their real characters.
I have been always interested in classic movies and music – a source of inspiration in my work. Since I discovered photography as art media, I found that I can express my feelings and capture the objects which I observe around myself.