On the face of it, this is an exhibition of photographs from and about two great Eastern powers, India and Iran. On the one hand, by a Western photographer who has traveled in the East and on the other an Eastern photographer who resides in the West.

However, what Peter Gonda and Kamal have in common is not the fact that their itineraries have taken them in one direction or another, but rather that of a shared sensibility. They take pains to see the world as it actually is and not merely as we would wish it to be. This implies not a reportorial eye at work, for they are not photojournalists, and their lenses never purport to be objective (as no lens can ever be); rather, they are united in determined patience and practiced timing, waiting for and seeking out what their mutual major influence – Henri Cartier-Bresson, called 'The decisive moment'.

This, it has been argued elsewhere and repeatedly, is the purest essence of photography, this eliciting of the mysteries of everyday life that are hidden in plain sight and available only to those who happen to glimpse them in passing or, like these two photographers, lie in wait of their inevitability.

Gonda and Kamal then, are purists in their approach. Let the instant tell the story, and let the photographer know his craft well enough to be the agent of conveyance to us that have, whether temporarily or as a result of the rushed pace of our lives, have blinded ourselves to such epiphanies. 

 

These moments occur anywhere and everywhere; in this exhibition, they happen to occur in two vast countries that dwell in the imagination of many Westerners and can be glimpsed here anew.

©: Mitch Albert Managing Editor of PEN International Magazine

:: Biography :: Kamal

Kamal immigrated to Canada in 1998 from Iran, where his youth was marked by the Revolution. Since 1988, Kamal has been very interested in documentary photography. He began taking photographs depicting the social and political aspects of life in Ayatollah Khomeiny's Iran. Under the mentorship of Chehrenegar, a renowned Iranian photographer, Kamal had the opportunity not only to learn the technical aspects of photography but also the human elements involved therein. A principal motivation in his photography has been to capture fleeting, historical moments and to share them with a wider public. 

In 2008, he was selected to participate in a Magnum master class under the leadership of first Canadian Magnum photographer Larry Towell who challenged Kamal to further emphasize his own photographic identity in his work.

During his career in Iran, Kamal's photographs were published in a variety of media including books, magazines, and newspapers. His work has also been displayed internationally at individual and collective exhibitions in Iran, Canada, France, Poland, and Turkey. He has been a freelance documentary photographer since 1991, and since 1998, his photos were also published in many magazines and newspapers in Canada, such as the Globe and Mail, the Calgary Herald, the Voir, the Hour, the Gazette and his photographs are in many public and private collections internationally. 

Since 1993, Kamal has dedicated his time to long-term projects envisioning life in black and white. From 1998 to 2003, Kamal focused on life in the Canadian West and the aboriginal communities in and around Calgary, Alberta.


He has lived in Montréal since 2003 and is working on his current long-term project about multiculturalism in Québec