Today we’d like to introduce you to Ali Sardar.
Ali, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have desired to explore this world ever since I can remember. I was 14 when I held in my hands a brand new Nikon d60. It wasn’t mine, nor did I know the first thing about photography then. Yet, It felt right. My imagination took over. I felt free to explore without boundaries. It’s a high that I experience every time I begin a new project. The uncertainty, the desire to create, and the tunnel vision. My cousin, whose camera I was using, sparked a fire when he said, “Ali, you have an eye for this.” With a simple encouragement and the desire to explore, I saw an opportunity, but now I believe it to be a calling.
This journey has had many side missions that helped me hone my skills and grow both as an individual and artist. I did not pursue Photography academically. I am self-taught and still learning and experimenting every day. I come from a home with traditional Pakistani values. My parents urged me to get a degree in something more “in demand.” Before anything, I want to express my utmost gratitude towards my upbringing. I can’t be grateful or thankful enough that I was blessed to grow up in the environment that I did. I was surrounded by genuine love and care. So I knew that my parents’ advice was from personal experience and a good place. In high school, I settled on another interest of mine, Computer Science. It was something I enjoyed learning about. However, during my years at Kennesaw State University, my interest in photography grew more serious. I would carry my cousin’s camera with me everywhere, to class, to the cafeteria, top of the parking decks. Yes, I borrowed his camera for long periods of time, the longest being almost two years. It was apart of me, and my cousin wanted me to continue honing my skills! Oddly now, I see my world with a 35mm film viewfinder.
I started spending more time exploring the city and watching YouTube videos on everything photography. With the mindset, practice makes perfect. I was able to get small paid gigs at dealerships, private car sellers, and small events. I began to understand how to use the camera, but more importantly, I realized that it’s not the camera as much as it’s the light that makes the image. You can create a camera with simple items such as a box with a small pinhole acting as an aperture, and on the inside of the box, the image would project upside down and reverse. And by placing a light-sensitive photo paper inside, you can develop the photograph through darkroom practices. All because of light! I was starting to uncover secrets from all my experiments. I knew I had to get my own camera. I saved money eventually got my own camera, the full-frame beast, Nikon D610. I had entered the big league. I had taken a few steps closer to the future I want. I started having second thoughts about my choice of major at KSU. I began to look for alternative solutions. I concluded not to waste my years and experience in CS but to combine it with my passion for art. I loved front-end development and UI development for apps, which led to me switch my degree to Applied Computer Science. I then decided to get a minor in Engagement Marketing. All in the effort to utilize photography in my career path.
While getting more gigs and honing my skills, I grew my gear comparable to a full time professional. Eventually, I was now doing small weddings. However, I had this idea of what I wanted to be, and it was not just to be a photographer at weddings but an artist with his work on a wall. I am one of those people that trust and believe in divine intervention.
One day I stumbled into a career fair meant purely for marketing students. There my eyes fell on a newspaper that had vivid color images. It was unique. It was a newspaper from a publication called Youth Today. It was then met the Business Operations Manager for The Center for Sustainable Journalism (CSJ), Chelsey Odom. CSJ just so happens to need an app developer. And before I know it, I was at CSJ with an internship. While the internship started as an app developer, an opportunity arose to use my photography. John Fleming, the Executive Editor, is someone I look to as a mentor, and I am extremely grateful for his significant guidance in my transformation as an artist. John would get me to think like a photojournalist, giving me several opportunities to cover stories for the Center. I was in a world of journalism, and everything is supposed to be done yesterday! I got to experience covering issues that meant something.
I met some incredible youths and adults while covering these stories. I was using my photos to bring attention to youth-related issues. There was a new feeling of brewing. I began to understand the difference between pictures and photographs. We all take pictures, and there are probably only a handful of photographs among the thousands of pictures. A photograph, to me, has a purpose, and I had to acknowledge that it’s not always the crispest shots that make a picture… a photograph. John helped me understand when covering stories as a photojournalist that a photo is more about helping tell a story. The words on the paper need a photograph to help create a visual for the readers. The photograph helps deliver a powerful message across in this digital era. “A picture is worth more words than you can actually use to describe if the photo is profound enough.”
Not long after, an opportunity that I could only dream of at that time was about to become a reality, my very first exhibit. CSJ had an old photography website that was not up to date and needed a refreshing new look. CSJ wanted a student to lead the project to bring the old site back to life. I was given that honor. After many trials and with other CSJ members’ help, I created what is now called BOKEHFOCUS. We decided on BOKEHFOCUS as the name because CSJ is all about focusing the attention on youth issues. Youth issues that many outsides of the field do not know about and CSJ bring to their attention. And bokeh is a term used in photography to describe the creamy smooth blur in the background and the idea to “focus” on those in the burr.
To launch the website, the idea of an exhibition was on the table. Before I knew it, I was given the responsibility to curate 2 other photographers, get prints made, find a venue. With CSJ, I was able to have my first exhibit featuring my work and other work curated by me. During this whole process, I was able to understand better what it meant to be an artist. To have an exhibition, what it’s like to curate other artists’ work, establishing a theme, the process behind printmaking, and, most importantly, I freaking relished every minute of it. So when CSJ decided to have an annual exhibition every year during Atlanta Celebrates Photography, I couldn’t be more excited. The following year, I was again given the same opportunity, full control over the 2018 exhibit.
The second exhibit was much more personal. I already knew what I wanted to share and provoke in the exhibit. I made so many connections, and many of the logistics were already set from my first exhibit that, in the second, I was able to focus on what I wanted to display artistically. The theme that year was to display work from abroad with an Atlanta lens. The idea was to see whether a city, much like Atlanta, can influence an artist and just people in general. I curated three other photographers from Atlanta to juxtapose the images they took in Atlanta with recent images they took when traveling outside of the United States. This inspiration came when I was actually in the UK, in a city called Bradford. There was an uncanny resemblance to Atlanta. The way people interacted and their attitude were similar to what I had experienced in Atlanta, except with a remarkably thick accent.
I obviously took hundreds of pictures during my visit to the UK. While curating through my own work, I began to see both Brandford and Atlanta as a living beating heart, the streets were the veins, and the people were the cells being pumped into and out of the city. The collection of work from all 4 photographers went really well together. Showcasing photos from Peru, the UK, and Greece alongside the street and people of Atlanta. The work is still for viewing on BokehFocus.com (https://bokehfocus.org/gallery/2018-bokehfocus-exhibition-traveling-the-world-with-an-atlanta-lens/). The exhibition had an even better turnout than the last one. I was able to express how I felt through my work that night.
The following May, I graduated with a BA in Applied Computer Science and a minor in Engagement Marketing. This side mission that allowed me to view and elaborate my art in a different form. It was a somber moment leaving CSJ, but my journey was only getting started. Since my graduation, I have experienced the corporate world, but then COVID-19 changed our world completely. In September, I was laid off, which helped me double down my focus on photography and officially launch the Film Production that I founded with my talented business partner and director, Austin Abdo, a couple of years ago.
A1SADR is my photography side, while ASquared Production is our pursuit of creating video and film-related content. After all, the video is “King” in the world of marketing. Through my journey, I’ve made many connections in the Atlanta art world. My exhibits granted me to be recognized as a local Atlanta artist. I got to connect with some amazing and talented photographers and videographers. When creating ASquared Production, it was to link with like-minded creatives with a passion for film to create stunning videos. In just a few months, ASquared Production created music videos for Alex Gutherie, Georiga’s own The Voice participant, and singer Amber Hairston. As well as commercials for local businesses. Even in this climate of uncertainty, I am grateful to say I am thriving.
Has it been a smooth road?
Most challenges I have faced have been financial. I relied heavily on Hope and other government grants to be able to afford college. Asking for money from my parents was not an option that I was comfortable with. I started working at Kumon when I was 15. By senior year in HS, I was tutoring privately consistently. Also, with the help of my paid gigs, I strategically bought my photography gear, slowly.
Another challenge has been my family accepting my passion for photography to create an avenue, but thankfully after years of hustling, they have seen my hard work and persistence. I would say another challenge would be my mental self. Sometimes I fear that my lack of traditional education in photography hinders my craft, and my peers in the art world will not recognize it. In an industry with an oversaturation of photographers and videographers, it honestly used to be hard to find people to take me seriously. That I’m just some guy who picked up a camera and watched a million YouTube videos, spends countless nights until wee hours on Lightroom editing.
Anxiety and stress have increasingly gotten more challenging to cope with as I realized this what I want to live for. I have learned how to cope with it by surrounding myself with good people, healthy environments, and meditating on living in the “Now.” CSJ gave me first-hand experience in the importance of proper planning, and hard work can make dreams a reality. For my first exhibit, I did not know the first bloody thing about putting an exhibition together. But with a proper plan set, I was able to see what I needed to learn, which allowed me to be even more successful and express my artistic self during my second exhibit.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
I am a freelance photographer and an artist under the name A1SADR. A1SADR is a visual title. Meaning it’s not meant to be really said out loud but visually identified. I specialize in portraits, street, event, and documentary style photography. When I am working for a client, it’s important to use my skills and attention to detail to bring their vision to reality. Weddings are, by far, the most tedious work but the most fun and rewarding to shoot. I look for that moment when the feelings are at their peak and capturing it forever. I have covered news, corporate events, modeling shoots, executive headshots, weddings, music videos, commercials, short movies, private parties, real estate. Still, I also desire to produce thought-provoking series while experimenting with different photographic techniques.
I’m most proud of executing two exhibitions, which were part of Atlanta Celebrates Photography. First exhibit: https://bokehfocus.org/gallery/bokeh-focus-first-photo-exhibit-2017/ Second exhibit: https://bokehfocus.org/gallery/2018-bokehfocus-exhibition-traveling-the-world-with-an-atlanta-lens/ and the work I covered for CSJ, especially the short docu-series I help produce called “Dear Mr. President.”
Part 1: https://youtu.be/2h_oImWP3NM
Part 2: https://youtu.be/k53vei74EJo
Part 3: https://youtu.be/SOQpCMzzMg4
I wouldn’t say my brand is fully developed yet, but it’s getting there! In comparison, ASquared Production is where I can create stunning and purposeful videos with other creatives’ help that are on the team. Austin Abdo, the director and co-founder, and I have built up an innovative film production team, using creative ways to produce videos for clients with the target audience in mind. What sets us apart from others is that we bring a lot of marketing experience to corporate and private sectors while bringing experienced videographers and producers who have worked on many shows for brands like Netflix here in Georgia. We bring both the creative and analytic approach to the table. We at ASquared Production understand that the video we produce serves a more ambitious purpose for the client. The video we produce will be created to help achieve their ambitious purpose.
We at ASquared Production are super proud of our most recent Halloween Commerical. It was created to help our clients raise awareness. That commercial garnered over 8.2K+ views on the client’s Facebook page, a huge success for the local business. We are also proud of the recent music videos we created for artists Alex Guthrie and Amber Hairston.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I consider Atlanta to be the “Eastern Hollywood.” Sure, LA and NY are great places to begin that journey if you are a photographer or filmmaker. But so is Atlanta. Atlanta has a great art community that is growing and gets recognition from all around the world. I do believe that you have to take action anywhere someone decides to pursue their career. I have had to create opportunities to meet and connect with the Atlanta art community. Since I didn’t go to SCAD or a university for my art, I did not have the advantage of getting connected via my school or peers by choice. I had to place myself in places where other Atlanta artists participated, such as Atlanta Celebrates Photography. For instance, I was placed in a rather unprecedented situation during my first exhibition. I needed to learn about printing, mat boards, other logistics associated with printing, and displaying the artwork.
Furthermore, since I didn’t know a print guy, I was at a loss. There are so many printing businesses, but I found Barry from Digital Art Studio for printing. He was able to help better understand the printing process and how colors can change after printing, images on a monitor, aka transmissive spectrophotometer versus viewing an actual print, aka reflective spectrophotometer. I later found out that Digital Art Studio and barry have been apart of the Atlanta art community for a long time. Even SCAD students come to Barry to get prints done. Another great thing about Atlanta and the greater area is that there so many ways to participate regardless of experience, which helps get into the art community.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.a1sadr.com
- Phone: 7703099494
- Email: a1sadr@yahoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a1sadr/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/a1sadr
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-sardar/
Image Credit:
My personal image was taken by Ian Lawernce.
Everything else is by Ali Sardar
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