Close your eyes and picture Bahrain. What do you see? Chances are your mind drifts straight to oil, gas, maybe a camel or two. Tired imagery, isn't it? The kind we might expect to have outgrown by now, especially in an age when the internet promises to connect us to everything. And yet those clichés still linger.

This is precisely where much of Ishaq Madan's work begins: taking those flattened ideas of Bahrain and replacing them with something far more textured. Through his lens, you find farmland, children laughing in the sea, people dressed with effortless style, and the small everyday moments that give a place its character. There is a quiet beauty to it, but also a clear devotion to Bahrain — one that has since travelled well beyond the island, with his work reaching audiences across Europe, the United States and Japan.

So, how did photography first find its way into Ishaq's life? Who shaped the way he sees the medium? Where do the ideas behind his photographs come from — and can photography really change the way the rest of the world sees Bahrain? We sat down with Ishaq to find out.

— You often trace your photography back to an iPhone. But where did it really begin?

—It all goes back much further! The iPhone chapter began at university, when I was about 19 or 20 — but if I am honest, photography had already crept into my life years before that, without me really noticing. When I was 11 or 12, my mother used to take my brother and me on family trips every summer, and whenever she fancied a photo of herself with us, she would simply thrust the camera into my hands. So, without ever meaning to, I became the family photographer.

I didn't think anything of it back then, but I reckon it quietly stuck with me. Years later, once phones started getting proper decent cameras, picking up an iPhone brought all that curiosity flooding back. I started photographing friends, places I had been, odd little things I had spot on my way to university — basically documenting whatever was going on around me.

And somewhere along the way, it turned into a habit — and that is really the word that matters here: habit. Even once I had graduated and landed a full-time corporate job, I would still have a camera on me every single day. There was no grand plan behind it at that stage; photography had just quietly woven itself into how I moved through everyday life.

— Before photography became the path, what did you think you were going to do?

— Honestly, I was still figuring that out. When I left school, I explored all sorts of directions — I did internships in corporate offices, even one in a hospital — while my university studies took me somewhere completely different from photography.

Eventually, I followed a fairly conventional route. As is often the case for Bahrainis, you tend to end up in either oil and gas or banking, and for me, it was banking. I stuck with it for a while and genuinely learnt a great deal, especially about communicating with people, understanding business and negotiating. So I don't look back on that time as wasted at all. But eventually I realised it simply wasn't how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

All the while, though, creativity had been humming away in the background. My mother is wonderfully creative — she used to play guitar and is now a well-established painter — and growing up, she was always encouraging my brother and me to explore that side of ourselves. So even though I had chosen a very different path, that influence never really disappeared. I suppose it had been quietly building all along, until photography eventually became the direction I wanted to follow.

— You have been photographing since around 2014. How has your work evolved since then?

— It has changed quite a lot. When I first picked up a camera, I was really just experimenting and trying to understand what photography could do. Over the years, though, my work has become much more connected to identity, and especially to how people outside the region — in the West, in particular — see Bahrain and the Gulf.

A recent example is Villains, a body of work I exhibited at Sikka Art Festival in February. It comes back to that same idea of showing how Arabs and Bahrainis actually live, but this time I approached it in a much more playful way. That was important to me because Western representations of the Gulf can still be incredibly stereotypical. There is often this very sepia-toned image of the region: desert, camels, people portrayed as barbaric — and that is about it.

I didn't want my response to those stereotypes to feel too serious or heavy. With Villains, I could play with those ideas, poke fun at them a little, while still questioning where they come from. And I think that is where my photography has gradually moved: towards showing the region from our own perspective, while challenging some of the ideas people elsewhere may already have about us.

— The idea of "sonder" seems to be central to your photography. What does it mean, and how does it influence the way you photograph people?

— Sonder is a really beautiful word once you look into its meaning and how it came to be. I was drawn to it because it makes you more aware of other people, and in a way, it grounds you.

The idea is simple, really: there are almost eight billion people on this planet, and every single one of them has a life as complex as your own — a different upbringing, different experiences, decisions, things they might be going through that you will never know about. Once you become conscious of that, you start looking at the people around you rather differently.

For me, that is where it connects with photography. You realise everyone has something to say, but you don't necessarily need a conversation with someone to find a story. Sometimes it is enough to simply observe how they interact with the people around them, how they move through a space, or what is happening around them at that particular moment.

That is probably why I am so drawn to street photography: you are catching someone at one small point in a much bigger life, without ever really knowing what came before or what happens after. I find something quietly beautiful in that — in just being there to observe it.

— You have spoken about wanting your work to bridge the gap between Bahrain and the rest of the world. When did you first become aware that this gap existed?

— Honestly, it hit me properly when I was studying in the United Kingdom. People would often ask where I was from. The moment I said Bahrain, I would usually get this confused look — Where is Bahrain? What is Bahrain? So I would end up explaining that it is an island near Saudi Arabia and Dubai, just to give them some sense of where I meant.

And that moment stuck with me because it seemed mad to me — we are all glued to our phones, supposedly more connected than ever, and yet Bahrain still barely registers. The few who had heard of it usually had this one flattened idea in their head: sand, oil, and not much else. Nothing about the people, the noise, the actual texture of the place.

I suppose that naturally worked its way into my photography. I want to show the Bahrain I know — the people, everyday life, the culture — but also moments that aren't all that different from what someone might experience anywhere else. That balance matters to me. I don't want to lose what makes Bahrain Bahrain, but I would like someone looking at my photos from another part of the world to find something familiar in there too. Maybe that is where the bridge really is.

— And do you feel photography has helped you build that bridge?

— I think it has, especially when I see where the photographs have ended up. My work has travelled around the world and now hangs in homes across Europe, which still feels a bit surreal to say out loud. Last year, I also put together a small zine of photographs from Bahrain that was sold at the Bahrain Pavilion at Expo Osaka. Through something as simple as that little publication, people in Japan were being introduced to Bahrain, catching glimpses of the country through my photographs.

Another moment that really stayed with me was when one of my photographs turned up across New York metro stations, exhibited by MoMA. Suddenly I was getting messages from people in New York saying, "Is this your work? I've just walked past it!" — some of them complete strangers, which was the best part. Moments like that make me feel the work is doing exactly what I always hoped it would do: taking this small island, and these everyday little moments, out into the world well beyond Bahrain.

— I was surprised to discover Daido Moriyama has been a major influence on the way you see photography. How did you discover his work, and what drew you to it?

— I actually had no idea who Daido Moriyama was when I first started out. I came across him later, once I had started taking photography more seriously and wanted to understand the medium beyond simply going out and taking pictures. So I started looking at other photographers, other artists, other worlds. And that, I think, is really important — you learn by practising, of course, but also by understanding what other people have done with the medium.

Moriyama immediately stood out to me because his work is so avant-garde and grungy. It almost feels like he isn't trying to make a 'good' composition in the conventional sense. His photographs are black and white, grainy, imperfect, sometimes quite extreme — and there is something very freeing about that.

Even the way he photographed was wonderfully instinctive. Sometimes he wouldn't even bother looking through the viewfinder — something would happen, he would simply lift the camera, take the shot, and carry on his way. And remember, this was all on film, so there was no peeking at the back of the camera to check whether he had got it. I rather love that idea — responding to a moment without overthinking it, without letting rules dictate every single photograph.

And that struck a particular chord with me at the time, because when I first started shooting on an iPhone, so much of what I saw came filtered through Instagram. Instagram back then, especially, was absolutely full of picture-perfect images: the perfect sunset, the perfect sunrise, everything polished and carefully composed within an inch of its life. Then along comes Moriyama, who chucks all of that straight out the window. He did things entirely his own way and became one of the most celebrated Japanese photographers precisely because of it, not in spite of it.

His photographs look nothing like mine, but that philosophy handed me the freedom to experiment. And that is also what I love about Japanese photography more broadly — it can be grounded, melancholic, even imperfect, without ever straining to make everything beautiful.

— Was there anyone closer to home who influenced the way you saw photography?

— Camille Zakharia was another important influence. He is a Lebanese-Canadian photographer, and I have known him for quite a while now. I first encountered his work at an exhibition at Bin Matar House in Muharraq, here in Bahrain, when I was still starting out.

Seeing his work showed me another side of what photography could be and made me think differently about what I could bring into my own process.

— Looking through your work, some photographs feel completely spontaneous, while others seem carefully staged. Do you have a particular style, or do you prefer moving between the two?

— I don't think I have one particular style, and that is also where Moriyama's influence comes in. I just enjoy doing what I do. If I have an idea or a concept in mind, I try to make it happen.

I don't think you should put yourself in a box and say, This is what I do, and this is all I do. I prefer to stay open and try different things, because that is how you experience more and learn more.

— When a photograph does begin with a concept rather than a spontaneous moment, where does the idea usually come from and what does the process look like?

— Usually it starts with the concept itself, which is born out of conversations I have had with people, or experiences I have lived through myself. Villains, for instance, partly goes back to something that happened at university in 2020. I was sitting in class, and one of my professors turned to me and said, "You are from the Middle East, right? I imagine you have got oil in your backyard. How many camels do you have?"

You might think that sounds like a joke, but sitting there, it really didn't feel like one. It felt quite passive-aggressive, as though it genuinely reflected how he saw that part of the world. I wasn't exactly offended; I was more surprised by how ignorant the comment was, especially coming from a university professor.

That moment stayed with me. In a way, it planted one of the seeds for Villains and pushed my photography more towards social commentary — questioning these stereotypes and the way the West sees us.

— Is there work that has felt particularly personal or vulnerable for you?

— I would say Until Debt Tears Us Apart. I made it around three or four years ago during a residency at Al Riwaq Art Space here in Bahrain. It ran for about four or five months, and we were given studio space to develop a body of work, all curated by William Wells. Every week, we would sit down with him one-on-one and talk through different topics, experiences and ideas, slowly building towards the final piece.

That particular work came from a very personal place, and it really reflected where I was mentally at that point in my life. It looks at how marriage in the Gulf can become tangled up with debt — people taking out huge loans or financing to pay for these lavish, over-the-top weddings — all while divorce rates in the region remain rather high.

It grew out of my own background, but also out of conversations with people who had been through similar experiences and were kind enough to share their stories with me. That is probably why I still think of it as one of the most vulnerable pieces I have made. It captured something very specific about exactly where I was, in that particular moment.

— If you had to choose one work that represents where you are as an artist today, which would it be?

— At this stage in my life, I would probably say Villains, which I mentioned earlier. It represents a lot of what I am trying to do now: reclaiming our identity in the Gulf and challenging the idea that Arabs, or Khaleejis, are barbaric or backward-thinking. You still see incredibly nasty comments about people from this region on social media, so showing another side of who we are has become very important to me.

But Villains is also much more playful than some of my earlier work, and there is a very personal reason for that. My daughter was born last October, and having her in the world with me has made me more playful with the work. In some way, the work is also about trying to make the world a slightly better place for her. I want people to see our region as a normal, good place — so that one day, as she grows up, she doesn't have to deal with the same kind of ignorance.

— I want to go through a few of your photographs individually — starting with the portrait of the person sitting on top of a stack of chairs. What is the story behind it?

That photograph was part of a campaign for Bahrain Ward, which was rebranding and relaunching the farmers' market. There is a word in Arabic, mahalli, which means "local," and the campaign was built around that idea — that local produce, local fruit and vegetables, and the people growing them are something worth celebrating. We have so much here in Bahrain; it doesn't always have to be about what is imported from abroad.

The goal was to create character posters for the farmers, but show them in a way that wasn't normally done. That is when I started thinking about these chairs: they are so iconic here — you see them everywhere: at cafés, on beaches, randomly on farms.

So the thought was: what if we stack them up and put the farmer right at the top? Almost like putting him on a pedestal. The idea was to show that farmers are the backbone of the island — they are producing the food that keeps the country going.

And by the way, one important detail: the guy in the photograph is an actual farmer. That was very important to us — everyone featured in the campaign was. I like my work to be as organic as possible, so whenever I can, I use people who are actually doing or experiencing the thing I am photographing. It makes the work feel much more authentic.

— Another photograph shows a Ramadan iftar from above. How did you capture that image?

— During Ramadan, some mosques here organise these open-air iftars where people can come together, break their fast and receive food for free. You see similar gatherings across the region, including in Dubai and Sharjah: it is really about giving back, bringing people together and taking care of the community, which is such an important part of Ramadan.

The first time I saw one, I immediately thought: I need to photograph this from above. From the ground, I could already imagine how that perspective would capture the sense of unity and community. So once I had the image in my head, it was really just a question of how to make it happen.

The problem is that drones are banned in Bahrain, so I had to find another way. I went to the top of a building, dangled myself over the ledge with my camera and took as many photographs as I could. And that is how I got the shot.

— And what about the portrait of the young man with the motorbike?

— That one was actually shot on film, so I had no idea how it was going to turn out until later.

My wife and I were in Bulgaria last year visiting some good friends, and they took us to the Rose Valley, where much of the country's rose oil is produced. We were driving through the area when we came across this old factory and decided to stop. We got lucky with the timing — everything was in bloom, there were roses everywhere, and the workers were out picking them by hand.

Then I noticed this motorbike parked on the side. I had no idea who it belonged to, but the moment I saw it against that landscape, I thought: I need to photograph whoever owns this bike. So I asked around, they pointed to this young man, and I said, Let's take a portrait of you on it.

There was just something about the whole combination — this young guy, the motorbike, all those roses around him. To me, it had this feeling of youth, discovery, a bit of recklessness and adventure. None of it was planned, but the moment I saw it, the photograph was already there.