Zaman is a versatile photographer who works regularly in both an artistic and a commercial capacity. As such, their subject matter encompasses a broad range of categories including portraiture, fashion, beauty, documentary reportage, still life and environmental photography. 

Identifying as queer and non-binary themselves, Zaman explores ideas of gender and sexuality in their work. Their curiosity led Zaman to document people in the trans-masculine community throughout the United States of America, culminating in the publication of their critically acclaimed book American Boys in April 2019 by nonprofit publisher Daylight Books. This series was also exhibited via a dynamic, public exhibition in Melbourne, Australia in Fed Square in January 2022. Fed Square is “the civic, cultural and community heart of the city as well as the gateway to the Arts Precinct.” Most recently, a selection of images from American Boys was acquired by the prestigious Bowdoin College Museum of Art to be a part of their permanent collection. 

Whereas the making of American Boys centered on travel throughout the country and photographing people in their own personal environments, the SoMad artist residency has given Zaman the opportunity to fix their practice to a single space. Granted with both time and space, Zaman has been able not only to play and explore but also to hone in on the genre of still life photography. Still life photography often represents subjects at their “prime” and most “beautiful": a flower at peak bloom, fruit at its most luscious. However, Zaman’s innate curiosity led them to a study of finding the beauty and vulnerability within the unseen moments, the rot and decay, the distorted and refracted. Zaman introduces a tension between preservation and decay. 

With the combination of a crystal bath solution and epoxy resin, each photograph is individually manipulated and worked to produce an entirely unique image. The photographs emerge adorned in crystals. Emulsion layers are stretched and transformed. These sculptural photographs take on new layers of complexity, furthering Zaman’s exploration of time, decay, vulnerability and preservation. Zaman asks the viewer to question: What is the prime of beauty? Can we be comfortable enough to let things sit and be studied? Is there space to transform outside of the expected?