Get to know CMC member Farras Abdelnour, in this short Q&A. Farras talks about his beginnings in photography, his most memorable gallery show and more.

Tell us how you got your start in photography.

My parents owned a Voigtlander camera which they extensively used to document their kids’ childhood. My father would marvel on and on at just how wonderful his camera was. Years later, as a teenager, he got me a compact Minolta, and thus started the journey. I later pursued slide photography, randomly photographing New York City in the 90s, and loved the Fuji Provia colors. And yet, coming from a science background, I instantly related to digital photography and the many tools available for abstract manipulation, and in 2007 I got myself a Nikon D200, my first digital camera. Photography remained a hobby as I pursued my research in computational neuroscience. In 2016, I joined the graduate digital photography program at School of Visual Arts, NYC, and since then I've been pursuing fine art and documentary projects.

What have you been up to? How are you staying active with photography during the pandemic?

2020 was a particularly strange year, yet the covid pandemic served as an impetus for me to continue working on “The Life Along the L Line” project, now in its 7th year. I would capture the impact of the pandemic daily, photographing the neighborhoods from Canarsie to Chelsea. I have also started exploring scanning my slide films using a DSLR camera, a separate project in itself.

You’ve done a few gallery shows around NYC. What was your favorite, any why?

True, I’ve had a few exhibitions in the city. The CMC pop-up exhibitions are particularly dear to me, with their sense of camaraderie and great exposure. I would say a 2019 exhibition at a Lower East gallery, culminating a six-month long workshop on maturing a project with feedback from the classmates and guest photographers, is quite memorable. It was my full scale venture into manipulating everyday life images into abstract shapes and patterns using alternate tools such as mathematics software.

Tell us a little about your most recent project.

I tend to work on multiple long term projects in parallel. In addition to my ongoing L train neighborhoods project, I build airplanes silhouettes negotiating geometric forms, leading to minimalist shapes. I started the project in summer of 2017 in Rockaway Beach, but the pandemic has slowed the project to a crawl. Recently, I revisited some of the images using more targeted Photoshop and other tools, allowing for improved masking and sharper graphic patterns. Hopefully I will continue photographing the airplanes as they approach or take off from JFK this coming spring.

Member Spotlight: Farras Abdelnour