The True Hearts of Sharjah

by Elham El Samra

This series of photographs, taken of shops on Sharjah’s oldest streets, showcases workers’ daily life. The camera points in their direction, creating a frontal approach that emphasizes intimacy. Displaying the cultural make-up of the city, the photographs try to capture individual interaction and how people behave in commercial spaces. They consist mainly of interior shots of grocery shops, garages, and street food vendors, with their vibrant colors and unique arrangements, displaying the visual rhythm of this city.

Focusing on the items behind the subjects, various cans, food items, phone covers, and stationary are lined up on the shelves giving the image a rhythmic framework.

The presence of the people in the stores is important to showcase the intimacy of the Sharjah community as well as their diversity.

The one image without a human subject, this photograph captures how the arrangement of stationary actually makes it vibrant, the array of colors converging in an almost harmonious manner.

This tightly framed view of the grocery store, tucked away in the corner of a street, also portrays passers-by in the area in the reflection of the glass storefront.

Superimposed on the store goods of the cafeteria are the reflections of cars and buildings; the image thus captures both an interior space and the streetscape of the city.

A worker, surrounded by bottles of soft drinks and bags upon bags of rice, showcasing what he does in his daily life.

Two men at work in a grocery store, selling boxed food as well as food in bulk– among other things. The scale, arrangement, and intimacy of the store points to the shopping cultures of the city’s inhabitants.