Images of India
As he enters Just Around the Corner, the salad bar in Bandra, photographer Swapan Parekh is tempted to click a photograph. He spots something on the street that would be considered mundane by most but to him it becomes a complicated grid of geometrical forms, magical reflections and juxtapositions that elevate the image from being just another mundane snapshot. This impulse to take photographs all the time with his Canon D70, has led the photographer to discover a new body of work that, to quote legendary photographer William Eggleston, is “At war with the obvious”. Known for his documentary and commercial advertising photography, winner and juror of the World Press Photo Awards, Parekh’s first ever solo Between Me & I travelled to Amsterdam in November where it was shown at the FOAM
Fotografiemuseum, and PhotoInk Gallery, Delhi. It opens at the Chatterjee & Lal Gallery this December and Parekh is rather nervous about how it will be taken by local photo-enthusiasts and fellow photographers. “The number of Modern photographers India has can be counted on two hands. Unfortunately we are still stuck in the traditions of picturesque photography and in the classic black-and-whites that make anything look artistic. We have not moved on to embrace images that are truly Modern,” says the 42-year-old Parekh. He names Dayanita Singh, Gauri Gill and Raghubir Singh among the chosen few. “When I visited the Netherlands, Denmark and Mexico, I was amazed by the individual language and cutting-edge styles employed by photographers there,” he emphasises. Studying photojournalism and documentary photography at the International Centre of Photography, New York, has given him exposure to other styles and approaches. The images on display are not easy to decode, in fact some may even dismiss them as self-indulgent navel gazing. However if one spends time, looking into the frame for clues, going beyond the obvious, proves richly rewarding. For example, in image of a seemingly cluttered room an old painting is tucked away amongst other rubble while a television screen showcases a model in a bikini. It juxtaposes the sacred and the profane while the green towel hanging between, perfectly divides the two worlds, like a flag that accentuates the incommunicado between them. Another image of a boy blowing bubbles has a magical quality to it; Parekh has cropped the mouth of the boy off and so the source of the bubbles are not revealed, lending the image an almost fairytale quality to it. Whether it is a wall spewing wires like an umbilical cord or a phantom image of a face floating in a glass door, Parekh manages to capture the unusual in the mundane.
Fotografiemuseum, and PhotoInk Gallery, Delhi. It opens at the Chatterjee & Lal Gallery this December and Parekh is rather nervous about how it will be taken by local photo-enthusiasts and fellow photographers. “The number of Modern photographers India has can be counted on two hands. Unfortunately we are still stuck in the traditions of picturesque photography and in the classic black-and-whites that make anything look artistic. We have not moved on to embrace images that are truly Modern,” says the 42-year-old Parekh. He names Dayanita Singh, Gauri Gill and Raghubir Singh among the chosen few. “When I visited the Netherlands, Denmark and Mexico, I was amazed by the individual language and cutting-edge styles employed by photographers there,” he emphasises. Studying photojournalism and documentary photography at the International Centre of Photography, New York, has given him exposure to other styles and approaches. The images on display are not easy to decode, in fact some may even dismiss them as self-indulgent navel gazing. However if one spends time, looking into the frame for clues, going beyond the obvious, proves richly rewarding. For example, in image of a seemingly cluttered room an old painting is tucked away amongst other rubble while a television screen showcases a model in a bikini. It juxtaposes the sacred and the profane while the green towel hanging between, perfectly divides the two worlds, like a flag that accentuates the incommunicado between them. Another image of a boy blowing bubbles has a magical quality to it; Parekh has cropped the mouth of the boy off and so the source of the bubbles are not revealed, lending the image an almost fairytale quality to it. Whether it is a wall spewing wires like an umbilical cord or a phantom image of a face floating in a glass door, Parekh manages to capture the unusual in the mundane.
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8:10 AM
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