Sarah Mayhew Craddock admires the work of Youssef Sida

If the rolling stone gathers no moss then Oxford-based photographer Youssef Sida is no ordinary rolling stone.

Born in Cairo in 1989, Sida attended nine different schools all around the globe before the age of 15. Youssef Sida’s family all enjoyed taking photographs during their travels, documenting their shared adventures, the sights, sounds and cultures that they experienced together.

Sida’s grandfather was a well-respected artist in Egypt, and Sida’s father recognised his son’s photographic potential.

Sida reflected fondly upon his father’s words as he described to me how his father had told him that it was clear from an early age that the young Youssef ‘had the eye’. He went on to describe how he would admire his grandfather’s precious camera during trips to his grandparents’ home in Egypt; and how honoured he felt when, as a teenager, the camera was bestowed on him after his grandfather had passed away. Despite grappling an almost crippling fear of breaking the camera (a fear that still lives in his dreams to this day) this was the SLR camera that sparked the young photographer’s love affair with film.

In 2011 Youssef Sida’s family settled in Oxford, the city that Sida now calls home, and in which he is about to mount an eclectic exhibition in the form of a pop-up shop in Big Society on Oxford’s equally eclectic Cowley Road. Looking at a selection of the 70 limited edition silver gelatin prints and postcards that will be exhibited in this one-day event, In Frame, taking place from noon-6pm this Saturday, it is clear that the travelling of his youth has had a profound effect on this young photographer. More than that, Sida’s work possesses a weight of responsibility, almost an obligation to capture and preserve transient moments and memories.

I find photographers often fall into one of two camps; the gregarious extroverts who gaily choreograph their compositions, and the discreet, reflective ones with impeccably well-honed observational skills who quietly capture those sacred fleeting moments. It would seem Sida falls into the latter camp.

Sida doesn’t come across as a big personality, but as a penetrating one. To meet him was to be studied by him; his big, dark eyes reflective of his big, dark lens, his viewfinder on the world that somehow puts his subjects at ease as he soaks up every last detail — the art of a great photographer, I suppose. On using film, as opposed to digital, Sida commented, “In the darkroom it’s just me and the chemicals, it’s a physical thing, a different way of seeing.”

The photographs Sida has selected to show for In Frame were taken on trips to the French Pyrenees, on a trek in Turkey, and in various locations between the Midlands and London. Infallibly intriguing, both collectively and in isolation, the images possess an air of mystery and nostalgia. Sida explained that he was fascinated by people, and interested in street-photography.

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He cites several influences from the travel stories taken by German black and white photographer Volker Hinz, to Irish conceptual documentary photographer Richard Mosse famed for using colour infrared film to photograph the war in the Eastern Congo, to local photographer Mike Hamand from Summertown, to his family and friends.

All of the works exhibited as part of In Frame are signed by Sida and are for sale, varying in price from postcards available to buy for £3 to large framed and mounted photographs available for £99 with a great deal in between. Sida hopes that the eclectic variety of subject matter will appeal to a great many people who might purchase an original piece of art as a Christmas present. Whilst there is variety in subject matter in this exhibition, there is no variety in quality; In Frame looks set to be an exhibition that would make any grandparent swell with pride.

In Frame
Big Society, 95 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1HR
12pm-6pm on Saturday December 6
Visit youssefsida.com