Looking Down: The smartphone generation

By Rubab Paracha

'Looking Down'

They call us the “instagram” and “smartphone” generation.

They say we can’t see the beauty around us because we are so absorbed in our phones, texting, whatsapping and facebooking. We are so busy taking selfies that we don't even truly appreciate the places where we are taking those pictures.

I am very much a part of this generation – one that is physically attached to her iPhone. And, I take pictures of everything and anything that I deem interesting.

This phenomena started a little over 10 years ago, when I got my first digital camera; I have never looked back since.

About a year ago, I moved to Germany to study at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. A new place, new people and a new language. As opposed to Karachi, here, I walk a lot, commuting from place to place, traveling from city to city and yes, naturally I always take along my iPhone, as well as my chunky digital camera.

I have increasingly discovered that the real fun lies not in the perfect shot of the architecture of famous cities, but in the details of things that most people don’t see.

As I was walking to the university one cold winter day, head bend over my iPhone, I noticed the most interesting looking man-hole cover, graphically depicting the city, along with its name embossed in the square metal cover.

Of course, I did what any fellow-instagrammer would do: I took a photo of it with my feet.

Hence began my series 'Looking Down'.

Since then, wherever I travelled I took pictures with the interesting designs of man-hole covers, which are distinct for each European city.

Along with this idea, I also took images of different places, where I sat down and sketched, another common practice of architects. Each image shows my feet and the place/object I was looking at. It was my way of creating a memory log of these places.

Being an architect, I always walk through the city stumbling upon places that are not typically tourist attractions and therein lies the true beauty of any city.

My series is an attempt to capture these tiny details of my longs walks and discoveries, a visual narrative where my shoes tell my story.

'Looking Down' is my way of identifying cities, not by the architecture but by these ignored cover designs. I’m an architect, and so I wanted to remember these cities in a unique way.

Sometimes, looking down is important.