here is never a dull moment while talking to Nadir Toosy. The photographer, known best as a fashion photographer, has a lot more to his portfolio. He has been an industrial photographer, a wedding photographer – a fact he likes keeping on the DL – and shot a season of Bisconni Music as well.

“And I’ve been a judge on Veet Miss Supermodel,” he quips.

While on the surface you might see a very cheerful guy who probably cheerfully whistles himself to sleep and is everyone’s friend, there is a lot of consideration that goes into every decision Toosy makes, where he gauges every possible outcome of every little step along the way. It’s a heavy burden to carry, but much like the backpack full of equipment he carries around while shooting, Toosy carries it well.

“I‘m actually allowing my work to flow,” he says, “I’ve been working since 2013, when I started my company, TRC, on a whim, and for 10 years I’ve just worked quietly.

“I feel like there is nothing I haven’t tried. I’ve shot editorials and ramps; I’ve shot DVCs and TVCs. I’ve had brilliant experiences and terrible ones. And now I feel I have come full circle.

I’m back to what I love most about my work, which is being true to the narrative of my subject.”

In the last few years, Toosy has found himself having to start over multiple times, in multiple ways. In 2020, while he attended a Qi Gong class in Thailand, the world basically shut down, and what was supposed be a weeks-long trip turned into months.

You could see that he kept his humor about the situation, but once he returned to Karachi, Toosy had to re-network, reengage, rebuild. There have had to be points he might have felt low, but if so, his natural optimism keeps him afloat.

Nadir Toosy is no stranger to starting over. In 2009, he went to the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture for a Communication Design degree. This in itself isn’t groundbreaking, as most creative minds in Pakistan end up at IVSAA, NCA, or the art departments at local universities. The Toosy twist here is that he left an almost finished Law degree to follow his heart.

None of that matters at the present moment thought, as Toosy contemplates the road ahead.

“All I want to focus on is doing work that is meaningful again. Yeah, I had a wonderful career from 2015 to 2017. I did a lot of fashion, I shot for all the big brands, went on to shoot some video, and then I did about two years where TRC was engaged by a mall in the city to shoot create content for them.

For these years TRC followed a digital agency model. What I’m really telling you is that I was enjoying my success, and then life worked out in a way that I had to take an 8-month-long break.”

“If you ask me, where I am today, I am at zero. I am happy to rezone everything, because it is a privilege to realize that learning never stops. For someone who started out with maybe two lights and one backdrop to the stock I constantly update, I am grateful for the journey because the work has helped me grow.”

Pre-and-post-lockdown worlds are two completely different animals in every way. You may not be masking up or even be required to quarantine if you have Covid anymore, but the long-term social and economic impact of those two years haunt us still. For a fashion photographer who went off the grid for almost a year, the cumulative impact of the lockdown packed twice the punch.

“When I came back, my perspective on work changed,” says Toosy. “I came back to shoot Bisconni Music, factories, corporate portraits, and for the first time, I reached a point where I said to myself: okay, I need to put my own work out there. I have always had a website, which I have not updated for five years. I realize that the world has shifted, and I need to put the work out there for the world to appreciate it. I feel I still have something to prove, like I am yet to produce that defining body of work.

“If you ask me, where I am today? I am at zero, and I am happy to rezone everything, because it is a privilege to realize that learning never stops. For someone who started out with maybe two lights and one backdrop to the stock I constantly update, and I am grateful for the journey because the work has helped me grow.”

Even on a first meeting, one can see the desire to serve and for altruism in Toosy. While the quality on its own is admirable, he keeps seeking ways to materialize it in meaningful ways as well.

“I teach Qi Gong now because it’s my culmination of doing work for society, industry and alignment. As photographers our bodies get destroyed lifting equipment and shooting in unreal positions. So our literal alignment goes out the window. Qi Gong is my way to reintroduce balance both physically and emotionally, spiritually to the world.”

The way in which Toosy brings this nuanced viewpoint to his work is interesting. For someone who views the world through layers of meaning, he keeps his final product simple.

“I think what I aim for is the good old ‘less is more’. We don’t need crazy props or elaborate sets to make something look good. You just need to be true to yourself and to what you’re shooting. When I’m shooting a portrait, I spend time with the person, and try to get them to express who they are, at their best, rather than some imagined best version that they think they are expected to be.”

All you need to know, before you start shooting is, what are you shooting, why are you shooting it, and what the ultimate image should convey, says Toosy. And most of all, he says, we often forget exactly the tools we have at our disposal.

“Just because it looks good elsewhere, doesn’t mean it will look good here – our heritage, our skin tone, our aura, it’s all very different from the sources we sometimes draw inspiration from. And when that happens, the final shots might be stiff or visibly uncomfortable. And to me, great fashion is when you’re completely comfortable in your skin and presence.”

As an artist who thinks deeply and widely about anything he does, including how his work will impact the world at large, Nadir Toosy has come a very long way indeed. But like every artist, he doesn’t think he will ever be done. He smiles as he says, “I’m still chasing that perfect body of work.”

– Nadir Toosy’s photo
by Bahareh Jalil