Muslimahs in the Arts

By: Essma Bengabsia

Aamna Aamir, a young Jersey Muslim activist and entrepreneur, recently launched Ziist Photography. In an effort to highlight social entrepreneurs and initiatives within the NJ Muslim community, The Muslim Network is proud to endorse Aamna’s initiative and give her the spotlight this month. Below is an email interview with Aamna.
 
Shameless plug-in: I am proud to say Aamna is also a board member of The Muslim Network – Lord bless!

Can you tell me about your services?
Ziist Photography offers all kinds of photoshoots; portraits (professional and personal), couples photos, group photos and small scale events. I hope to expand these as my experience and style expands as well! 
 
What inspired you to start this?
I've been into photography since I was in middle school, early high school. I have a pretty shaky memory so I always had a love for capturing moments. My uncle was a photographer as well growing up and he helped me with my first DSLR camera as well as gave me Lightroom, one of the most common editing software for photographers. I didn't really get into it until the end of college, and after graduating. It saved me from a lot of difficult "recent graduate" times and depressive episodes. It became my source of fulfillment, as I learned everything I could about my camera and my style. I was inspired by sentiment, the people around me and my own desire to be outwardly expressive. 
 
What are your favorite pictures and why?
Some of my favorite pictures are ones that I took in a random bookstore in Montclair. It's kind of difficult to find interesting places to shoot in Jersey especially indoors so I was excited when they turned out well. I especially like them because they ended up being an unintentional statement piece on the fierceness of my fellow Muslimahs. In my favorite picture, Walla (another awesome member of the Muslim Network), the book she's holding reads "Bad Girls" and is actually a cartoon book of important and powerful women in history. In the other picture, we have Amatullah (a graduate student active her local Muslim community), just being her natural boss self. 
 
What power do you see in the arts? What power do you see in photography?
I could go on and on about the power of art. I'll keep it brief. The process of creating art is so inexplicably valuable. It teaches you so much about the way you think, the way you handle influence and criticism, the amount of effort you are willing to put in to reach a point of perceived perfection, and so on. When you sit down to express yourself you're not expressing what's already within you, you're expressing what you're learning about yourself in the process. It's so much more difficult than anyone thinks, a process no one can master, just constantly practice. The power of photography is greatly the same. Like other art mediums, it allows us to convey complex feelings like sentiment, nostalgia, melancholy and so on. As a Muslim, it allows us to appreciate detail, the beauty around us and how we'll never be able to re-create it but express our gratitude for it. For me personally, photography had the power to give me more appreciation for life and myself and it ultimately motivated me to become a better person and a better Muslim. People who don't think they produce art are gravely mistaken. The power of art is in the process itself and not the product, so just go for it! 
 
What’s a fun fact about you no one would ever guess?
Current read: Tokyo Ghoul