Huda Abdulmughni – Qeshm Doors

Review by Hans Hickerson ·

Qeshm Island in the strategic Persian Gulf has been in the news lately. It is a large island of about 600 square miles, just off the coast of Iran in the Straight of Hormuz.

In 2018 in more peaceful times Kuwaiti photographer Huda Abdulmughni visited Qeshm. She stayed in a small fishing village and photographed the local fishermen’s new year celebration, which resulted in her recent book Qeshm Doors.

The “doors” in the title are the fourteen photographs of doors of houses and gates that are included in the book. Along with images of a few places they are placed opposite photos of people. Most of the doors are made of metal and are painted and decorated with distinctive motifs – a fish, flowers, birds, palm trees, and a variety of geometric shapes. Their distinctive colors, designs, and textures set up complements and contrasts with elements in the facing photos.

The photographs of the local people show them going about their everyday activities. Men row a boat. Children and adults play in the water. A boy climbs a tree. A woman prepares flatbread. A man steps through the mangroves. We also see what must be village holiday traditions. People costumed as a cow, a fish, a camel, and a palm tree. A trio of musicians on the beach. A woman sitting in a boat with, balanced on her head, of all things, a sewing machine.

Abdulmughni’s photos are not dramatic. Her subjects appear at ease with the camera. They do not treat her with hostility or suspicion. They accept her and she treats them with dignity and she highlights their humanity.

Photographs like those in Qeshm Doors take us somewhere new. They reveal the universal in the ordinary and tell us stories about people who are a lot like us. Unless you are blinded by malignant narcissism you will view them as people you probably do not want to bomb.

Hans Hickerson, Editor of the PhotoBook Journal, is a photographer and photobook artist from Portland, Oregon.

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Huda Abdulmughni – Qeshm Doors

Photographer: Huda Abdulmughni (born 1964 in Kuwait, lives in Kuwait City)

Language: English

Text: Laila Al Hamed

Design: Anthony Hamboussi

Printing: Edition One Books

Perfect softcover; 32 photographs; 36 pages; 8 X 9 inches: ISBN 978-1-7335212-4-6

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Articles and photographs published in the PhotoBook Journal may not be reproduced without the permission of the PhotoBook Journal staff and the photographer(s). All images, texts, and designs are under copyright by the authors and publishers.