A photographic ethnography on Saudi women, titled More Than Just the Hijab, was held at Evoke Cafe in Lalitpur on Wednesday. The event featured Saudi Arabian photographer Tasneem Al-Sultan as the keynote speaker. The event was organised as a collateral event of Photo Kathmandu in partnership with The Platform Inc, Jhamsikhel. 

During the event, Al-sultan, recounted stories, with the photographs, of women whose everyday lives are a struggle to receive recognition from the society. The photographs revealed women who have been empowering themselves, in a supposedly sexist society, by holding jobs that are higher than their male counterpart. 

Al-sultan also talked of her personal journey as a female photographer in Saudi. When she first started photography, it was a mere hobby that with time grew on her. “But since my parents were against it, making a career out of photography was a challenge,” she said, “The ideal profession would have been either doctor or engineer.” She revealed that she pursued the career against the grain. 

Born in America and brought up in England, Al-Sultan moved to Saudi Arabia for her undergraduate and has been living there since. Al-Sultan started out as a wedding photographer, photographing more than 50 weddings per year. Few years down the line, she started getting offers from various international newspapers and then pursued documentary photography as well. 

Speaking at the event about her ongoing project that tells the tales of divorcee women, Al-sultan revealed the prejudices that are attached to marriage in Saudi: “Wedding is an extravagant—almost a fantasy—affair. Nobody talks of the harsh realities attached to it and divorces are undisclosed. It was very difficult for me to get divorced women on tow for the films. Only few women have agreed to embrace and disclose the truth as it is.” The struggle has hindered and delayed her project. 

Al-Sultan, an avid instagrammer, who has been posting her photographs portraying an unlikely side of Saudi was recognised by Instagram as one of the five people changing the mindset of global audience through photography. 

Al-Sultan’s collection—Saudi Tales of Love—is being exhibited at Nagbahal as a part of Photo Kathmandu, which will end next Thursday, Nov 3.