A Female Photographer from Hyderabad!

Samia Sarfaraz, an architecture graduate and deeply passionate about photography is the founder of squaricle. Her journey towards pursuing photography as a career started in 2015 when she attended a workshop on photography in her city, Hyderabad. Through this workshop that she got the opportunity to explore the full range and genres of photography. Samia was particularly interested in street photography and enjoyed capturing shots from the diverse lives of people on the street.

Samia also attended a youth conference, named Hyderabad Youth Network (HYN) which was positively impacting the lives of the people through its well-designed, comprehensive program. This conference was led by a 1st-year student of a university, who inspired Samia to also do something meaningful and impactful.

Thus, the amalgamation of these two events, led Samia to the idea of Social Documentary Photography. The idea of which, was to capture shots and cover stories revolving around those shots with an intention to raise awareness among the masses on social issues.

In 2016, Samia became a part of a photo-walk organized by vuegraphy in the city of Karachi that featured internationally recognized photographers. Amongst the 100’s of pictures that Samia captured, there was one frame that proved to be a life-changing one for her.

Samia could extract multiple lessons from this picture; about life, the opportunities, the gaps, our roles in the society, the harsh realities, the irony and so on. This one shot reinforced her belief in her niche and gave her the confidence to move forward with her idea. Samia enjoyed capturing the details on the faces of the people on the streets; the joy, the hardships, the worries, and the satisfaction. Samia could create stories out of each of her shots. Her vision is to become a voice for the people around her, through her platform, catering to all socio-economic categories equally.

Samia started an instagram photography account and would use it mainly as her portfolio while pitching herself as a photographer to potential clients. While documentary photography emerged as Samia’s prime passion, it was still not as well received by the society, as certain other genres were. This forced Samia to broaden her interest area and step into the market of wedding photography and product photography. While she did not particularly enjoy these genres, Samia still worked in these domains for the higher returns, that helped her run her kitchen.

Initially, Samia faced some challenges while trying to capture people on the streets. Some would be hesitant in being captured, while others would dig deeper into her ‘agenda’ behind the photos being taken. Samia was also criticised on social media for making fun of the poor, and was accused to do it for the sake of likes and money. However, trusting the process and knowing her kind intentions behind the work, Samia kept on moving forward. She also got featured on multiple platforms for the amazing skills she displayed.

Another major challenge that Samia faced was competition from established wedding photography companies. Moreover, larger brands possess better equipment and have more room for investing in them.

“DICE fellowship program was like a guide, a mentor, who held my hand and took me to a journey of running a business. I feel educated about my business now.” Samia shared her thoughts on DICE fellowship program.

She learnt the importance of having a team in the long-run, as well as the added credibility that comes along with registering your enterprise officially. She has registered her enterprise with the name of “Squaricle”.

Samia has improved her ability to manage finances and along with that her all-important instagram portfolio as well.

The images on the left shows Samia’s instagram feed that contains a mixture of everything that she would capture. However, the DICE mentors guided and suggested Samia to focus on one niche as the core, while the side-interests can always use the side-path. The image on the right depicts the thematic change consciously adapted by Samia, since DICE.

“My small business got great exposure through DICE. This allows me to be better prepared for challenges in the future and offers a great network of fellows, mentors, experts and facilitators.”

10 years from now, Samia doesn’t measure success on an individual level, rather, sees Squaricle to be a platform that raises multiple social issues across the country and works towards sustainable solutions, in collaboration with the relevant authorities.

“DICE, was like a quick MBA for me.” — Samia Sarfaraz from Squaricle.