About Gulfography
Gulfography is an online gallery dedicated to showcasing photography from the Gulf region of the Middle East. Our mission is to present a new vision of the Gulf that expresses its unparalleled beauty, tradition, and boldness. We want to be a virtual home for both emerging and established artists and share their unique vision with those interested in seeing and buying their photography.
Gulfography was inspired by an exhibit called Privately by Shammi Samano in Dubai, which showcased the photographs of female Emirati college students. The exhibit was praised for being a “remarkably honest and spellbinding” look at lives of young women in the UAE. Wanting to continue to share the journey of Privately, we decided to get virtual and create an on-going global exhibit that can cross geographical and even ideological boundaries.
Ultimately, Gulfography.com is about you—those who stop by to just take a look, our photographers from around the world who are our lifeblood, and our fans that let us know someone hears us all loud and clear! We hope to create a community and family of people who might not always see things the same way, but are at least willing to see things differently for even a brief moment.
If you are a photographer, we accept submission on an on-going basis and would love to see your work. You can email us low-res images or a link to your photos to: submissions@gulfography.com. We’re interested in work relevant to life in or about the Gulf region. We’re especially drawn to work that’s both conceptually and aesthetically meaningful and even bold. Our focus is on local photographers from the region, but we accept work from expats as well.
If you are an art appreciator, collector, or buyer, we look forward to working with you to select a limited edition print that is exactly what you're looking for. It's an exiciting time in the Middle East art market right now and all emerging artists on our site are poised to be a big part of its future.
We encourage active feedback from everyone so if you have something to say, please speak up by going to the “Contact” tab, or post your thoughts on our blog.
Our Team
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Shammi Samano, Co-Founder A former college media professor, Shammi holds a master’s of fine arts from UCLA. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, she immigrated to the U.S. at age eight, without a word of English but eyes that took in everything, beginning a lifelong relationship with images, the “immigrant’s language.” She discovered filmmaking during the Gulf War when she found herself forced to face questions that were begging for answers. She has written and directed several films, including East, Anniversary, and Animal Stories, which have screened at international film festivals. Via films that portray the strange and sometimes even comedic experience of being an immigrant in the U.S., Shammi’s work demonstrates that while images speak a thousand words, 24 frames of them per second speak even more. While teaching media production in Dubai, she was welcomed into a world of local culture by her Emirati students. She produced the documentary Finding Mr. & Mrs. Right: Dubai Style and curated a photo exhibit entitled Privately, a progenitor of Gulfography. In this hyper-globalized world where communication is easy but connection difficult, information a keystroke away but the Truth out of reach, she cofounded Gulfography as way to speak to the immigrant in all of us that floats virtually off the ground—rootless, reaching for a new language that connects us to each other and a home where we finally belong. |
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Asma Al Kendi, Co-Founder Born and raised in the United Arab Emirates, a country whose population is 85 percent non-native, Asma Al Kendi was exposed to foreign cultures at an early age. Only a few months after receiving her bachelor’s degree in computer science from Dubai Women’s College, Asma moved to the United States for work. Asma quickly realized Americans have little understanding of the world she came from. The first question asked by the passport control officer at the San Francisco Airport was, “Where is Your Burqa?” Asma identified a great need to explain that the Gulf region of the Middle East is more than Burqas, deserts, camels, and violence, and that women in the Gulf are just as strong, independent, and full of ambitions as women in the West. She cofounded Gulfography to make this point, combining her background in computer science and love of the arts. By creating a space for the people of the region to share their experience with the rest of the world, she hopes to build an artistic and technological bridge that connects us all through powerful, creative images that speak the language of the new generation.
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