17. Suki Dhanda
“I had to shape myself. Whatever I’ve done, I’ve done it on my own. As a woman, I’ve had to empower myself”
This interview was something of a moment for me. I’ve admired photographer Suki Dhanda since I became aware of her work in the Observer, soon after I moved to London 24 years ago. She has captured some of the world’s most famous faces, so I guarantee you’ll have come across one of her portraits. In the last few months, she’s photographed Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ambika Mod and Afua Hirsch, to name a few.
Suki didn’t plan to be a photographer. When she was young, she wanted to get into fashion. Interested in art from a young age, she says she was always sketching portraits of her family and friends as well as drawing outfits and clothing she liked and creating looks. Sadly her mother has long since cleared out all of her old sketch books, so there’s no record of this raw ambition.
Growing up in Slough, in a conservative Punjabi household, Suki was keen to get away to study an art foundation course as soon as she could. “I found my vocation, that was it. Photography! That's it - I loved it, it was so fun… it was very freeing. I realised I was absolutely going go to art college to do it”. Suki studied at Plymouth (where she is now an Honorary Fellow), which was far enough away from her childhood home to give her the freedom to explore her newfound passion.
“When I moved back home after art college, I started assisting photographers in London. That's where I really started to learn everything I needed to know. I began shooting unpaid for this jazz magazine, Straight No Chaser and I used their studio. It was really cool. We used to shoot all the musicians in black and white. It was all black and white those days, all old-school and on film. The lab was in Hoxton Square and everyone in that area was so interesting. It was a different world back then. But it was gratifying to have something published, especially when I was so young”.
Suki happily got into her groove in London, doing unpaid but rewarding work while simultaneously working on her own projects in her free time, and was going to move to Hackney with her friends “…but I think the thing that went wrong, was when I had to have an arranged marriage when I was 25. I wasn’t forced, but I felt I had to do it. Culturally, it was expected of me.”
After a year and a half Suki left her husband and moved to London as originally planned: “it was only when I left, that I really started focusing on me. It's interesting. I just got rid of my baggage, started doing some project work in Whitechapel and then one thing led to another and I started meeting other British Asians in the music and the arts”.
It was a vibrant and interesting period for her because, she says, she didn't know many other British Asians around that time and so, in 1999 when she met someone who was doing a project around British Asians and asked her to contribute, she didn’t hesitate. The exhibition 000ZEROZEROZERO at the Whitechapel Gallery featured some of that work.
One image that really stands out for her was taken in 2001; a photograph of three girls, all in hijab. She wanted to examine how girls and women in the Muslim community dressed and to start a conversation around how these teenage girls were perceived, reductively at that time, as “just Pakistanis” because of the conservative way that they dressed, even though they were born in the UK. Their way of dressing resonated with her because, even though she wasn’t Muslim, she didn’t have the freedom to wear what she wanted growing up. “The thing is, the way they dressed wasn't that dissimilar to what [white] girls were wearing in clubs - wearing dresses over their trousers and wearing bhindis – there, it was seen as really edgy. I was exploring that whole conflicting idea, the cultural crossover. I did some work with groups of girls in a club in Whitechapel and that led me to be invited to do commission for the British Council. So I did that project for about a year”.
That project, the Shopna Series, focused on the idea of community and toured as a group exhibition, travelling to Malaysia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabi until 2007, and then India and Pakistan in 2013-14. Suki accompanied the show to some of the locations to do talks and workshops with young people.
Some of the images from that project are featured in a new book, Shining Lights, which was published in February (Suki is looking at the book in some of the images featured). You can find the book here, read more about her work on the project in this article in The Guardian and in Dazed and Confused.
Growing up in a South Asian household, Suki says she had to create her own opportunities and forge her own path “I had to shape myself. Whatever I've done, I've done it on my own. As a woman, I've had to empower myself. I was brought up in a household with two brothers and a sister but the boys were celebrated, encouraged to go out and play and we [girls] did the cooking and the cleaning. I've had to fight against the system a little bit, which hasn’t always been easy over the years”.
The work that Suki enjoys the most now is location-based, rather than in a studio – low key, with a small team. Even better if there is travel involved. When she gets a job, she looks up the person and comes up with a story for them in her mind. She then plans how she might want to light them, position them, etc. There can be lots of limiting factors but even with the simplest set-ups, she will try and find a way to bring in some texture or a point of difference “and sometimes simply going for a stroll with somebody, you can have more of a connection with that person, and then hopefully capture them more successfully. I really enjoy interacting with people”.
Suki says routine is important to her and she attends regular Pilates classes because the breathing throughout is a great stress buster. Even more important to her is her Lakeland Terrier, Millie and she finds long walks with her enormously therapeutic.
On Hackney, Suki said that upon moving here she immediately knew she’d found her place: “it was such a nice mix. It’s diverse and I feel really at home. I feel safe and part of a community. I hadn’t always felt like I belonged, before moving here”.
She chats a little about the challenges of being a young woman working in a predominantly male environment. When she was younger, she felt as though none of the more established (mostly male) photographers took her seriously “I felt like people used to think I was just a bit of a joke, like I'd always be laughing and a bit too girly. I felt I needed to step up to be taken more seriously. I started upping my game with my lighting, I upped my game in every way. And a new woman editor came along, and she started giving me really good jobs. We used to do really fun stuff and I felt empowered, because up until then it was a bit of a boys club.”
Another challenge Suki has faced as a freelancer is having to manage all the elements of her business single handed, alongside motherhood (she has an eight year old daughter) “I've got to deal with everything myself. I'm retouching, I'm working in my office - I still haven't even finished my website. It’s so difficult sometimes because it really is a juggle. There are so many things, the admin and frantically getting everything ready for the end of the financial year….”
What she enjoys most about her work is the process. Meeting her subject and enjoying their company can be fulfilling enough that she’ll still walk away happy, even if she doesn’t feel as though she’s got “the shot”.
Suki tries not to push herself too much, in order to maintain balance. She wants to be around for her daughter but finds it difficult to work on her own projects, when her paid work (including the time consuming editing and retouching afterwards) takes up so much of her time. But now she feels the moment might have come to shift things up a gear.
“I need to spice it up a bit. I need to do some other, different work. I just need to get around to it! But what I won't do is put myself under pressure. When you work as a commercial photographer you're producing work that [your clients] want you to do. But when you're doing your personal work, it must come from somewhere, so it’s about allowing that vision through. Opening your eyes and letting go, being a bit free and having that space. I will have a lightbulb moment soon… Watch this space!”
To close, I asked which women creatives Suki most admires: on photographer Annabel Elston, with whom she went to art college, she says “she's very dedicated, she’s always hunting for an image. She’s got an interesting take, because she does it every day. She sees things that other people might not see”. Also Laura McCluskey, another photographer who used to assist Suki: “I've seen her grow and it's amazing what she's done. She's really put the hard work in” and finally the painter Lucy Muss, who recently did a collaboration with Colours of Arley.
Find Suki on Instagram and her website is here. See more of her work on the British Council website and, of course, you can see a selection of her work on the website for The Guardian & Observer.