Review by Hans Hickerson ·
Letters to Azan is about photographer Lali Khalid’s relationship with her son. Khalid is from Pakistan. She grew up and studied there before moving to the US to study photography. Her son Azan was born in the U.S. in 2012. We do not hear anything about Azan’s father, but we gather that he and Khalid are separated and that there have been contentious custody, parenting, and visitation issues.
The photographs in the Letters to Azan overlap back and forth in time. They show Khalid as a child with her parents, pregnant, and with Azan as an infant, toddler, and tween. We see mother and son relaxing and playing at home and outside in summer and winter, mostly tender and intimate moments. Many of the photos are closeups in natural light with dark, dramatic shadows. Interspersed among the photos are several bleak images of nature – a snowy, foggy road, a line of grey surf, a lake shoreline in summer. There are also photos that look to be family snapshots of Khalid as a girl with her parents, plus moody photos of her alone as an adult.
The photographs are in color and of varied sizes. Interspersed are short texts. Some are photos of handwritten messages on small pieces of note paper. The texts are in Urdu, and translated versions in English follow them several pages later. (This took me a while to figure out.) There are also several small colored page inserts with brief texts in English: “Summer, a fiery sun,” “A strange hesitation,” “Indefinite verdicts.” The meaning of at least one text seems obvious. When you turn the page after a photo of Khalid, “Not silent” lines up exactly on top of her face. Another photo, with the text “Seranade (sic) of the deer” is more puzzling. The photo that surrounds it is a view of birds – kites? – circling in a cloudy sky.
The photographed notes are labeled and identify who wrote them. “Baba, (father),” “Amma (mother),” “Hamza,” ”Ambreen Khala,” “Saher.” These are presumably the letters referred to in the title from relatives in Pakistan to Khalid’s son Azam that offer love, support, advice, and words of wisdom.
A longer text in English at the end of the book is Khalid’s own letter to her son. She shares memories of his birth, the challenges of life and litigation “after the separation,” and her hopes for the future.
The book’s message is linked to its form, to the journey that unfolds as you turn the pages. Letters to Azan is a book that suggests rather than explains. It is heavy on feeling and light on fact. For me it piqued my curiosity but did not completely satisfy it. I wanted to know more details, specifics of who, what, when, and where. But is that on Khalid or me? Should I blame my rational, linear, male gaze?
When you look at someone’s photobook, you have to take what is offered. You have to deal with it as it is. It is the author’s book, the author’s world, not yours. You can’t fault them for not making it the way you would have.
Lali Khalid packs a lot of emotions into Letters to Azan: sadness, loneliness, grief, despair, rage, defiance, frustration, tenderness, intimacy, hope, determination, longing, and love. Emotions are fleeting and likely to dissipate if you try to explain them or pin them down. How can you put them in a photobook? In Letters to Azan Lali Khalid shows us how.
Hans Hickerson, Editor of the PhotoBook Journal, is a photographer and photobook artist from Portland, Oregon.
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Lali Khalid – Letters to Azan
Photographer: Lali Khalid (born in Lahore, Pakistan; lives in Chicago)
Publisher: Workshop Arts © 2026
Language: English, Urdu
Texts: Lali Khalid, others
Art Direction: Caleb Cain Marcus, Luminosity Lab
Printing: ABC Tipgrafia Firenze
Hardcover; 55 photographs; Swiss binding, 132 pages, unpaginated; 7 x 9.75 inches, ISBN 978-1-959684-14-5
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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.
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