CLAIRVOYANCE by Baber Afzal
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Archival pigment print
Dimensions: 100 x 150 cm
Edition production year: 2017
Edition of 5
Price: $6800.00 USD
Status: available
In CLAIRVOYANCE, I wanted to preserve the rare moment when a familiar city seemed to reveal another version of itself. I photographed Dubai in 2017, shortly before sunset, as an unusual veil of evening fog moved through the skyline. Because fog here is more often encountered in the early morning, the scene felt unexpected, almost like a private vision arriving at the edge of day. The Burj Khalifa rises through the atmosphere with a quiet, luminous certainty, while the surrounding towers hover between presence and disappearance. Their warm facades hold the last traces of daylight, set against a deepening sky that feels both vast and intimate. I composed the image so the central tower appears less like a monument and more like a beacon, emerging from a city briefly released from its usual clarity. This transformation is central to my practice. I am drawn to the way weather and light can loosen our certainty about places we think we know. Through this archival pigment print, I hope to create a pause: a space where the real and the imagined overlap, and where mystery becomes a way of seeing more clearly.
Why collect this work?
A strict central alignment turns the Burj Khalifa into a narrow seam of light, while haze makes the skyline’s apparent solidity seem provisional.
- Afzal states that his practice uses weather and light to make familiar places feel unfamiliar. Here, recognisable architecture remains legible even as atmosphere partially obscures it.
- The central tower rises between two shorter, warm-toned buildings, while dark structures press against the lateral edges. This framing concentrates the eye on vertical ascent and the contrast between illumination and enclosure.
- Catalogued as a 2017 archival pigment print, the photograph combines precise architectural description with closely graded shadow and haze. The medium can preserve both fine linear detail and subtle tonal separation.
- The work complicates monument-led images of Dubai by making weather, rather than architecture alone, the agent of transformation. It presents the city as temporarily contingent, despite its engineered scale and visual authority.
About the Artist
Baber Afzal
Baber Afzal is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: Fine Art Photography. Based in Dubai, AE.
Nationality: Pakistani
A visual artist and fine art photographer exploring the relationship between landscape, architecture, atmosphere and the passage of time.
