OBSERVATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER
Warm greetings and heartiest welcome to my site! I can describe the aspirational version of myself in five words.
Raconteur: Evocative Images + Words = Memorable Stories
VISION
I capture the significance of events by making evocative photographs of people, places, and things, to tell memorable stories about our collective living.
BIO
Shehzad Niazi is a physician and photographer with over thirty years of experience. Born in Pakistan, he first experienced America's expansive landscape in December 2000, traveling for thirty-one days via Greyhound across the US on a pass purchased in Karachi—listening to Johnny Cash CDs while riding the buses to residency interviews. He moved to the US in June 2001 for medical training. He and his family—wife of twenty-four years and two sons—have lived in Oklahoma City, Rice Lake, Wisconsin, and now reside in Florida. His passions for photography, reading, traveling, and medicine have evolved in tandem, informing one another.
His first roll of 35mm Kodak TRI-X 400 black-and-white film yielded two properly exposed images. Though dismayed, he chose to focus on his paltry 5.56% success rate rather than the 94.44% failure rate. He persisted, eventually running a successful events and wedding photography business. Thirty years of self-study in visual arts and graphic design inform his urban and landscape panoramic images. He uses series of images to write visual stories—stories that may be as successful as the results of his first roll of film, but he's sticking with them and learning and improving (he hopes).
Professionally, he is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and board-certified in Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, and Clinical Informatics. He serves as chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at Mayo Clinic Florida, where he primarily cares for organ transplant and cancer patients. He was a writing fellow at Harvard Medical School and will soon graduate with a Master's in Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University's Extension School.
In 1989, he printed a list of 82 Nobel laureates in literature, naively setting a goal to read at least one book by each before his 20th birthday. He failed. Thirty-six years later, he's still working on it, falling further behind each October. Man proposes, God disposes, and such is life—thwarted aspirational goals, incremental progress, and becoming comfortable with the idea that in 4000 weeks of an average life, we will always miss out on most things. And that's perfectly alright.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Two defining moments changed my life on my 17th birthday in 1991: I started medical school in Lahore, Pakistan, and bought my first camera, a well-loved Olympus OM-4. My first roll of 35mm Kodak TRI-X 400 black-and-white film yielded two properly exposed images. I was dismayed; however, I focused on my 5.56% success rate, rather than the 94.44% failure rate. It gradually improved until I built a wedding and event photography business that supported passion projects and gear acquisition. In 2001, I got married, and two weeks later, we moved to Oklahoma City for my residency. After spending four years in the Sooner state and seven in Wisconsin, and after assuring our six- and eight-year-old boys that they could still cheer for the Packers and promising to take them to Monster Truck events, we relocated to Florida—trading tornadoes and snowstorms for hurricanes.
Photography and medicine have evolved together, each informing the other. Both demand empathy, keen observation, analytical thinking, and delayed gratification. Both require what Bergson noted: we see with our eyes only what our minds comprehend. I visualize first, then photograph to approximate those mental constructs. When a vista stuns me, I capture expansive panoramas. When color startles, I prioritize hue and tint. When contrast dominates, I celebrate with black and white.
I prefer a sequence of pictures to tell visual stories. To communicate my stories effectively, clarity of communication—visual and written—is crucial. To complement my decades-long self-study in the visual arts, I have pursued formal education in writing, first as a writing scholar at Harvard Medical School and subsequently by pursuing a master's in creative writing and literature from Harvard University. This dual training in both mediums shapes how I construct images using visual grammar, like composing sentences with syntax.
Just as a poem or a story acquires new life when readers engage with it, I imagine viewers will bring their inner worlds to bear as they interact with my images, entering a dialogue to arrive at their distinct conclusions. This collaborative dialogue is the essence of image-making: co-creating and discovering versions of perceived reality. "The real voyage of discovery," Proust reminds us, "consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." May we all see both the familiar and exotic with new eyes!
Arts, Humanities, and Medicine
The creative arts and the art and science of medical practice share deeper connections than most people recognize.
Medical training cultivates competencies that translate remarkably well to visual arts. Medicine attracts empathetic, observant, and analytical individuals who genuinely care for people, recognize each person's unique individuality and context, build meaningful human connections, and embrace delayed gratification. These qualities prove invaluable for photographers, enabling them to master evolving technical skills, connect authentically with subjects, and craft visual narratives that reveal our shared humanity.
Photography reciprocates by serving a healing purpose—fostering deeper understanding of people, places, and experiences. Through visual storytelling, photographers bridge divides and create connections that cultivate empathy and compassion.
Visual arts literacy equally benefits medical practitioners. Acute observation skills and understanding of compositional principles enhance diagnostic capabilities and communication. Training in visual perception sharpens pattern recognition, while artistic sensibility engenders greater empathy—both essential for compassionate, effective medical care.
This intersection creates a meaningful synergy where both disciplines inform and strengthen each other, ultimately serving the broader goal of understanding and healing the human condition.
This is how I think about Art.
“Art is what we call the thing an artist does. It's not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human. Art is not in the eye of the beholder. It's in the soul of the artist.”
Seth Godin