Tag: photography

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Redefining photography trends for gen-Z and millennials

The Nikon Z 8 promises to be a game-changer while capturing those decisive moments, offering wildlife and sports photographers innovative tools to explore new creative horizons, ensures capturing those action shots and ensures every frame is captured and nothing is missed…reports Asian Lite News

Today, the art of photography in India transcends beyond the professional photographers and has reached common people. Both Gen-Zs and millennials use cameras with cutting-edge technology, to fuel their passion for framing memories.

If you’re someone who loves to photograph, you can’t miss these trends to ensure your pictures are timeless yet trendy:

AI-Driven capture and enhancement

The fusion of AI with visual photography is revolutionizing the photography culture by offering effortless background removal and natural retouching. Especially for on-the-go travel content creators and vloggers with limited editing time, AI is the savior.

Nikon Z 9  has a very unique feature called “Auto Capture “. It works with AI and helps the camera to understand subject, motion and distance, enabling the camera to capture images and video automatically.

Highly advanced cameras like the Nikon Z 8, features high-performance AI-driven autofocus helping to seize the moments seamlessly.

Return of Cinematography

In filmmaking, videographers are reviving cinematic aesthetics with crystal-clear formats like 4K and 8K. This resolution along with HDR (High Dynamic Range), elevates visuals adding intense colors and remarkable contrast. This resolution along with high frame rate, elevates visuals by bringing that intricate detail to life and adding smooth cinematic slow motion.

Cherish Moments by capturing decisive photos

While it’s all about photos, when it comes to pre-release capture, its real magic lies in capturing those critical moments that define a scene. A captured image, let you to re-live the moment, time and time, providing a sneak peek into the scene’s vibe. Likewise, Nikon Z8 preserves ambience by capturing pre- and post-shutter video snippets, adding emotion to shots. This pre-release feature has more to do with capturing those decisive moments.

The Nikon Z 8 promises to be a game-changer while capturing those decisive moments, offering wildlife and sports photographers innovative tools to explore new creative horizons, ensures capturing those action shots and ensures every frame is captured and nothing is missed.

Perfecting Portraits with Skin Softening

If you’re all about those smooth and flawless portraits, then guess what?

Skin-softening feature has got your back with the magic touch giving perfect tones to the pictures designed especially for photographers who do fancy model shoots to make their pics pop and look elegant. The latest Nikon Cameras have AI driven Skin Softening feature which lets photographers capture soft and glowing portraits. The best part about this feature is that it only affects the skin and doesn’t affect the facial hair etc. Skin Softening feature greatly reduces turnaround time therefore enabling photographers/content creators to immediately post to their social media without spending too much time on post-production.

Shooting At Unstoppable Frames

Unleash the power of unstoppable shooting with Nikon Z 8 and Z 9, capturing moments at an astonishing 20 frames per second. Freeze time and capture every moment with over 1000 RAW images in a single, relentless burst. Paint stories through each shot, ensuring not a single detail escapes your lens.

With the technical trends, the Imaging industry is also witnessing yet another interesting shift. Gen Z’s, especially women are pursuing photography as a profession and form of artistic expression. This trend has emerged with increased access to photography equipment, workshops, and educational resources. Their influence spans Metaverse, NFTs, and unique palettes, injecting freshness into the industry. They redefine photography with their distinct twist and creative vision. Nikon’s unique campaigns like “Through Her Lens,” and “Shutterbug” are initiatives to empower professional and amateur women and student photographers in India.

As technology advanced rapidly in the photography arena, the future potential seems massive. This year promises excitement and dynamism for photographers and the field of photography.

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People’s perception of photographs ‘guided’ her towards themes

This Chandigarh-based self-taught artist stresses she sees herself not just as a photographer but in fact a creative director…writes Sukant Deepak

Her subjects are constantly longing — though never trapped in it. Nostalgia, memory, and the need for tenderness never leave any frame. A certain symphony passes through her different series.

In the dreamscapes she sees through her viewfinder, 29-year-old photographer Farheen Fatima, recipient of the Toto Photography Award (2022), whose work has been featured by Apple, Getty Images Reportage, and VSCO, it was people’s perception of her photographs that ‘guided’ her towards the themes she explored later.

“When I started photographing, many viewers pointed an underlying emphasis on memory. But in my head that was not what I was really exploring, in fact my canvas was blank. So, in a way it was a reverse process — and I started exploring nostalgia and memory. Loneliness is another element that touches me. Whenever out, I seldom see an individual alone with herself/himself. He is either on the phone or doing something to distract himself. What he is avoiding?” 

This Chandigarh-based self-taught artist stresses she sees herself not just as a photographer but in fact a creative director.

She remembers spraying water on roses in order to get better pictures when she was in ninth grade — her first memory of photography. Adding that the effort has forever been to let the simple speak different languages, the photographer, whose work has been exhibited in Spain, Malaysia, Germany, and the US, including India, at the India Art Fair in New Delhi and the UAE at the Sharjah Art Foundation smiles, “Rather than just capturing an image, I prefer to create it, precisely why I draw and paint on my photographs,” says this M.A. History of Art passout from Panjab University.

Fatima feels the world metamorphoses when she looks at it through the viewfinder. Believing that everyone is a control freak and feels anxious when things and circumstances do not behave as they want them to, she admits to being quite an anxious person.

“When I put something in front of the camera the way I want it, there is a sense of control that is being created in my mind and if it is translating visually, then there’s also a need to get validated. But in that process, you make peace with not having 15 things in control. And because I have been doing it for so long, I know how to. I will struggle with it but I can manage,” says the photographer who is now exploring analog photography. 

Fatima, who shot an entire series during lockdown, capturing people over Facetime and Zoom has no plans to move to a bigger city.

“Well, they scare me. I prefer to go there on assignments and come back,” says the photographer, who has also co-authored a poetry book ‘Private Maps’ published by Human/Kind Press, Wilmington, US.

The photographer, represented by Photoink who discovered her on Instagram, says social media played a crucial role during her initial years.

“I always tell content creators, do not get in the trap of algorithms and fads. Stick to your beliefs,” says Fatima, who is currently working on a project at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), exploring changes in the lives of young women from small towns who come to study there.

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Most fascinating underwater photography

Kriti’s work invites the viewers to journey with her on the emotional experience of diving while experiencing her imagination where colours exist in a hyper real state-intense and vivid…reports Asian Lite News

New York-based photographer, Kriti Bisaria presented her new work – ‘The Plunge’ at Art Magnum, New Delhi recently.

An Indian-born photographer and director, whose images are inspired by the colours of the natural world and the serene movement of water across a landscape, she has travelled all over the world seeking out varied experiences in cultures, fashion, art, literature and adventure sports.

Kriti’s work invites the viewers to journey with her on the emotional experience of diving while experiencing her imagination where colours exist in a hyper real state-intense and vivid. Flashes of red, white and metal cut across calm, murky deep blues and pinks and remind us of the feeling of being born again.

The artist says: “The most fascinating thing about underwater photography is how things move in the water. It’s surreal. I seek fluid motions in my work, and I find water an easy medium to achieve that movement and dreamlike effect that I want in my pictures. It’s beautiful!”

Diving presents a rollercoaster of emotion; fear before the dive, exhilaration during the dive followed by adrenaline as one’s body touches the water and a sense of calm as one swims further into the deep blue depths of an ocean. Kriti asks: “What happens when we dive into the unknown? When we shed fear, mistrust, and the grind of daily life and allow ourselves the freedom and grace to become rejuvenated and empowered by the experience?”

While fashion shoots require much preparation, the photographer describes shooting fashion underwater as another ‘beast’. “Underwater modelling is incredibly difficult and there are only handful of models that can do this kind of shoot. Kriti typically practices poses with the models before then get in the water and will have them do the same pose repeatedly until she gets the shot.”

She is currently the Director of Photography for a major fashion brand in NYC and is a certified scuba diver who trained in the Pacific Ocean in California.

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‘A Summer Slumber’

She adds that Emma, the Co-owner of Method, had seen parts of the work while curating another exhibition and suggested that she put them together in a singular show…reports Sukant Deepak

She says she would not know how to consciously keep writing and photography independent, and they intersect constantly. Quoting writer and photographer, Wright Morris, who said “I don’t give up the camera eye when I write, merely the camera,” writer and photographer Zahra Amiruddin says that these lines have always resonated with her deeply since the words and sentences she chooses are usually extremely visceral.

Her exhibition of photographs, ‘A Summer Slumber’ opened recently at Method, Bandra in Mumbai (till June 20), which is a culmination of a collective stream of consciousness, brought upon by the change of patterns, self-reflection and growth, Amiruddin says that she is a kind of an artist who first creates and then develops.

“I usually never photograph with an agenda in mind, unless it is for a commissioned assignment. I had been photographing the listless and endless afternoons during lockdown for quite a while. And over time, my collection had recurring themes and patterns running through them,” she tells.

In ‘A Summer Slumber’, the photographs are shifting memories, moving between the past and the present through digital and analogue imagery, and multiple videos.

They create a narrative of a season spinning inside the artist’s mind, flanked by the heat of the outdoor summer sun. Since Amiruddin is primarily interested in the act of photographing through feeling and not purely through observation, the body of work is a space to immerse oneself amid a memory — both current and distant.

She adds that Emma, the Co-owner of Method, had seen parts of the work while curating another exhibition and suggested that she put them together in a singular show.

“I was ecstatic but was hesitant about making the show about lockdown since I was rather saturated with that period in time. Instead, I brought together photographs of nostalgia, longing, a yearning for a place far from the one you’re in, and afternoon dreams that are often unfinished. Eventually, it felt like summer.”

For this writer and photographer, the viewfinder is an old friend who helps her both escape and discover. While photographing during her college days, she realised that it brought about a strange sense of confidence within her that urged her to wield, create and write with light.

“The human mind is so intriguing, it has countless ways of perceiving the same reality. And that was what photography brought to me, a tactile version of my own truth. Here, I’m strictly speaking about personal realities, and not documentary photography which needs to be as close to the truth as the image-maker can get. The viewfinder allows you to compartmentalise large worlds within four corners of a frame, and that to me is enchanting.”

Although, she had been photographing with her writing, it was in 2015 when she went to study at The Aegean Center for the Fine Arts in Paros, Greece, that she discovered an eye that was dormant all the while.

“I found a way to wield light through feeling there and to photograph by instinct and not by technique alone. I think that made a world of a difference.”

Stressing that both writing and photography are essential for her as what she cannot photograph, she writes about, and when she cannot find words, she wields images; the artist feels that it is paramount to inculcate passion for the form through experimentation with it in children.

“We get so caught up with the technical and theoretical aspects of art, that the development of instinct, observation and gut feeling takes a backseat. This is most unfortunate, because in my opinion, without feeling, there can never be true expression,” says Amiruddin, who has also taught at Sophia College, and conducted various workshops at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.

She is currently developing a book with her photography collective named, ‘Eight Thirty’.

“We are a group of nine photographers who are women and live across the expanse of India but have still found a singular space to coexist. I am also finding ways to push myself to make my own photobook come to life.”

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‘Birth of a White Rose’ and ‘Convergence – A Panorama of Photography’s French Connections in India’

Convergence has been produced by intrepid travellers, writers, journalists, photographers and artists. The exhibits will span the colonial, modern and postcolonial periods of sub-continental history from the mid-nineteenth- century to the 1970s…reports Asian Lite News

Two new exhibitions, ‘Birth of a White Rose’ and ‘Convergence – A Panorama of Photography’s French Connections in India’, will open at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), Saket, on May 27 till June 30.

‘Birth of a White Rose’ will pay tribute to artist-pedagogue Somnath Hore whose practice cruised routes of social realism as well as humanistic modernism, mentoring the generations of students and artists.

Concurrently, KNMA will co-present the exhibition ‘Convergence – A Panorama of Photography’s French Connections in India’, curated by Rahaab Allana, along with the Embassy of France/The French Institute in India, Institut Francais and The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts.

Hore’s show will unfold nuances of creative implementations of the artist, revelling 101 years of his birth, through a panoply of works rendered in the richness of diverse mediums. It will explore novel routes and appreciate creative imprints germinating from a philosophy of humanism of the master in remembrance.

Beholding the museum’s previous thematic exhibition-triad that mapped the abstract and non-figurative in visual arts, this time the exhibitions take the opportunity to look at ‘the figural’. Keeping in mind the havoc caused by the pandemic, where imposed isolations, losses and its resultant anguish, has commenced valuing the beauty of existence and survival, insisting to be attentive to realities of not just humans alone but embracing all living presences. This has prompted the museum to look at art that masterfully addresses the need to pause and observe life, as the humanistic values slip away in the momentum of presumed civilisational progress.

Convergence has been produced by intrepid travellers, writers, journalists, photographers and artists. The exhibits will span the colonial, modern and postcolonial periods of sub-continental history from the mid-nineteenth- century to the 1970s.

It will feature works of notable French photographers over broad spans of time, such as Louis-Theophile Marie Rousselet; a French traveller in India during the 1860s who met India’s first photographer king, Sawai Ram Singh II in Jaipur. Marc Riboud was a celebrated French photojournalist who worked for Paris-based Magnum Photos from 1953-78 and travelled all around Asia in the 50s along with the works of many other modern European masters such as Denis Brihat, Paul Almasy, Edward Miller and Bernard Pierre Wolff among others.

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‘Photographic’ glory and grandeur of Kashmir

Amarnath and Ram Chand had come to Kashmir from Gurdaspur (Punjab) in 1905. In 1915, they started a photo shop in a houseboat on the Jhelum River in uptown Srinagar city…reports Sheikh Qayoom

“You just can’t have enough of Kashmir”. Two brothers, Amarnath Mehta and Ram Chand Mehta, who came to Kashmir as tourists in 1915, proved the adage. Their visit was literally a homecoming as they decided to live in Kashmir since their passion for photography could just not have a better means of expression than in the mesmerising Valley, its royal grandeur, and the simplicity of its people.

For three generations, the Mehtas have believed that Kashmir is the Mecca for a photographer and photo lovers.

Amarnath and Ram Chand had come to Kashmir from Gurdaspur (Punjab) in 1905. In 1915, they started a photo shop in a houseboat on the Jhelum river in uptown Srinagar city.

Subsequently, they shifted to a shop on the embankment of the Jhelum river, where the studio stands today as ‘Mahatta and Co’. The change of name from ‘Mehta’ to ‘Mahatta’ is a story in itself. Ghulam Muhammad Sofi, who joined the studio on February 2, 1972 said: “The name ‘Mehta’ was mispronounced by British tourists as ‘Mahatta’ and that is what finally became our brand name”. He said Ram Chand Mehta treated his staff, including Sofi like his own children.

“After his death in 1994, Jagdish Mehta took over. He would always tell us that since the elder Mehta called us his sons, so we were his brothers.”

As coincidence would have it, Ram Chand Mehta, his wife and son Jagdish all passed away on 23rd June though in different years”, Sofi recalled. His 50 years at the Mahattas have been a saga in time and photography. “On behalf of the Mahattas, I was officially engaged as the photographer for VVIP functions in Kashmir. “I have taken pictures of late Indira Gandhi, Gaini Zail Singh, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah and other senior leaders.

“Among the film stars, I have photographed Dilip Kumar, Saira Banu, Rajesh Khanna and Jagdeep during their visits to Kashmir”.

He misses the old times like a child who has lost all his toys.”Taking pictures, retouching them, processing films, marching colours etc in the studio was an art which is all vanished now. You shoot with a digital phone or camera these days and that it.”

Photography has ceased to be an art it used to be earlier. The Mahattas were the first to start colour photography in Delhi and Srinagar in 1957. Except for Mumbai, these were the only two places where colour photography was available those days”, he said. For his incomplete venture, ‘Zooni’ featuring the life and times of Kashmiri Queen, Habba Khatoun, film maker, Muzaffar Ali had engaged Sofi for picking up the locales for the film. “I visited different villages with Muzaffar Ali to select the native village of Habba Khatoun. “He finally picked up a place near Harwan outside Srinagar city, but the film was never completed”, Sofi said.

The passion and business of ‘Mahattas’ knew no bounds after 1915. The studio initially became known for portraits as it was first such place to have all kinds of props and backgrounds the customers desired to have. Their business grew exponentially. They established photo studios in Lahore, Sialkot, Rawalpindi and at the Murree hill station in Pakistan.

These studios had to be closed with the country’s partition in 1947, but after that, they started a bigger photo studio at Connaught Place in Delhi which was closed just a few years back. Ram Chand Mehta’s son, Jagdish Mehta managed the studio till his death in 2016 and his wife, Anita Mehta runs the studio these days. She said, “We have spent three generations in continuing our legacy. From preservation of local art, culture, crafts, customs, heritage, tourism and politics, we have all this preserved frame by frame in our gallery”. She said the family wants to return some part of the greatness Kashmir has bestowed on them.

“For me keeping up the family tradition and legacy is a worship. My two sons work in Delhi and we have the largest photo stock agency in the World. So you understand that we have not been deterred by losses in business and other troubles which we faced like every other Kashmiri.”

Photography in its pure and traditional form has a future which cannot be taken away by anything. Technology comes as an asset and not as an enemy to the art form”, she said. Her two sons come frequently to visit their mother and take keen interest in the affairs of the studio in Srinagar. “This place is our place of worship which we can never imagine to give up”, she said while talking of the studio the family owns. “The first floor of our establishment is a work place for young, talented local photographers and artists.

“At the ground floor, we run a cafe where the young and old gather to view our photo gallery and discuss the events of the bygone days as also the impact of this grand heritage on the future of this place”, Anita said.

The photo gallery at the Mahattas is in fact a ‘who is who’ of not only Kashmir, but the entire country. There are photographers of Maharaja Hari Singh, his royal Durbar, his son and first regent of the state, Karan Singh, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Sheikh Abdullah, V.P.Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and many others. These are original photographs taken by the Mahattas and none of them is a reproduction from anywhere. Similarly, they have originals photographs of the Amarnath Holy Cave taken at different points of time. The Hazratbal shrine, the Sharika Devi Temple, the shrine of Sheikh Humza Makhdoom, the shrine of Sheikh Nuruddin Wali at Chrar-e-Sharief and other Sufi shrines of Kashmir.

The photographs of snow clad mountains, rivers, springs, artisans at work like carpet weavers, shawl makers, papier machie workers, willow wicker workers, mat weavers, potters etc also dot the gallery. Different races of Kashmir, the Gujjars, Dogras, Kashmiris, Ladakhis, Dards also known as Shinas and others have been photographed in their natural settings. Since the outbreak of armed violence in early 1990s, business for the Mahattas also took a beating like everything else.

Anita’s two sons are now working in Delhi while the lady is carrying on the family legacy in Kashmir. In 2012, government of India recognised the Mahatta studio as the second oldest photo studio in the country. The Mahattas became the royal photographers of the Dogra Maharaja Hari Singh in 1930s.

“This gave us free access to the royal Durban (Court) and the palace which no other photographer had till that time”, said Ms Mehta. Visiting the Mahattas on the Bund in Srinagar is like visiting the Mecca of photography in Kashmir. Within minutes of looking at the photo gallery, one is transported into the times gone by. The glory and grandeur of Kashmir is visible, frame by frame, picture by picture at the Mahattas.

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Raghu Rai: It is not tough to take a beautiful photograph anymore

It is all about going by your instinct. For me – to perceive, receive and respond articulately is a language…Raghu Rai speaks with Sukant Deepak

During the peak of the pandemic last year, while revisiting his archives, and going through his work of more than half a decade, he chanced upon numerous photographs of filmmaker Satyajit Ray who he had shot extensively in Kolkata.

For photographer Raghu Rai, it was a revelation of kinds, seeing the many unused pictures of Ray in different moods, shades and tones. It was also the great filmmaker’s centenary year.

When Rai showed these photographs to his writer and art curator friend Ina Puri, who was visiting, she said that it called for a book. And thus, was born the recently released book ‘Satyajit Ray’. Puri also wrote the book’s introduction.

“Also, many unused photographs that I took of Satyajit Ray in his house were underexposed and underdeveloped as well. But thanks to digital technology, as long as you have an image, it can be brought to life. It was an amazing experience — seeing the enigmatic Ray ’emerging’ in so many shades,” he tells.

Rai had met Ray in Delhi twice before he decided to shoot him in Calcutta, but he remembers his encounter with him during the National Awards ceremony, where the filmmaker was carrying several awards. “I asked him if he needed help carrying so many things. He laughed – ‘Well, not in this case.'”

Though Rai had could spend just two days with Ray in Calcutta, shooting him at a film set, he could manage enough material for more than one book. “Even today, I am an extremely hungry photographer. When I am shooting, taking a meal break is also a waste of time,” says the photographer.

Remembering the evening spent on the ghats of Ganga with him, Rai recalls, “He got ready in his usual attire. As we were on the location, an idol of Durga surfaced. Now it was not the pujo time. So you see, all you have to do is ask the universe for the extraordinary.”

Rai, who has shot and produced books on Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and major Indian classical musicians, among others, insists that one does not have to be gifted to produce remarkable pictures of such people. “How can I give myself credit when such personalities have an incredible persona and an aura that is almost divine..”

Talk to him about the ‘internal preparation’ before shooting great masters, and he laughs, “It is all about going by your instinct. For me – to perceive, receive and respond articulately is a language. Sometimes people look at some of my important works and ask me what I was thinking at the time of taking those pictures. I say I wasn’t thinking. I only feel and respond. Thinking is what politicians do. An artist can begin with an idea or a concept, but things evolve, the thinking goes away and the divine energy completes the process. So this is what is good about creativity. You wait for the energy to give you darshan.”

Rai feels that in contemporary times, “everybody has become a photographer” and digital technology, despite its advantages can also be very dangerous. “All you have to do is put the camera in auto-focus. Even mobile phone cameras have become sophisticated. It is not tough to take a beautiful photograph anymore… but where is the soul, the spirit in the picture?”

Rai, who still makes it a point to go on the ground and capture major events like the CAA protests and the farmers’ agitation stresses that it is important to be concerned and involved. “When Indira Gandhi lost and I captured an important photograph, some people asked me where my loyalties lay, after all, she gave me the Padma Shri. But then, I was given the award for my work during the 1971 war. My only dharma is to capture the truth.”

Currently working on a book on global warming, on which he also plans to hold an exhibition, Rai says, “I have worked on cyclones and floods. and so much more. Besides, my archives have thrown up material for more than 10 books.”

Ina Puri adds about the book ‘Satyajit Ray’, “For a writer, what could be more satisfying than chronicling Raghu Rai’s experience as he shot Ray, his favourite filmmaker. I feel privileged to be part of the project.”

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William Dalrymple : ‘Biographically led histories are more interesting’

The author, who has been mostly using mobile phones to photograph, recalls that when he recently met his friend, Don McCullin, considered Britain’s greatest living photographer, he too was bowled over by the results…writes Sukant Deepak.

Historian, author and photographer William Dalrymple believes that it is imperative that political forces do not interfere with either literature, the arts or writing of history — and that goes for any government in power — right, left or centrist.

While he does not see anything wrong with re-writing of history as every generation does that and it happens to be an ongoing process, the author of books like ‘The Anarchy’, ‘The Last Mughal’, ‘The White Mughals’ and ‘Return of a King’ among others, feels that when it done with particular end in mind rather than by impartial looking at the evidence, the same can be very damaging.

“You have to make a fair judgment based on available evidence, and then write as impartially as you can. Frankly, no one is completely impartial, we all come to any given situation with the biases and ideas we were brought up with. And so the writing of history will never be ‘complete’,” he tells.

Talk to him about the dominance of Marxist left in many history departments in the post war period, and he feels that it is inevitable that there be a reaction against that.

“There is a historiography emphasising economical and social forces at the expense of biography and human agency. Yes, very few biographies have been written by Indian history departments until recently. I support some form of re-balancing, particularly towards more biographically led history and that is what I have been doing in my work already. It makes history much more interesting and accessible. Many Marxist historians researching early India, often ignored the importance of religion as a motivating force in human history,” he says.

Dalrymple, whose latest series of photographs ‘In Search of Ancient India’ is being exhibited (October 8-November 3) at Vadehra Art Gallery in the capital says it is a byproduct of his new book project – ‘The Golden Road’. “As you know, for the past 20 years I have written about early colonialism in India by the East India Company, and my four books on that, has now appeared as a box set — ‘The Company Quartet’. Now I am back to my first love which is early Buddhist Art, art history and Archaeology.”

Even as a a teenager, the author would spend most of his time at digs. Most of his summer holidays would be spent at various archaeological sites, first in Scotland and then in England. “When I left school I wanted to go and dig in Iraq and arranged to take on an ancient Syrian site, but at the last minute the dig was cancelled by Saddam Hussain and I ended up coming to India.

“The stuff that used to interest me in those days was very early history- Indus Valley, Ashoka, Ajanta, Sanchi. Some of the first things I ever wrote about India was on that very early history. The various travels that I made in the course of researching my book The Anarchy, led me to pick up this subject as my next book. Stuff that I have been longing to write about for years but never dealt with it at book length.”

The book is essentially a story of Indian culture around Asia and has three parts — the first is the northwards thrust through Pakistan and Afghanistan and Xinhang, Western China. The route that Buddhism took up through there, to eventually become by the 7th century, the state religion in China.

“Today, when India and China are at loggerheads, it is important to remember that India once culturally colonised China. When it became the state religion under the emperor Wu Zeitian in the 660’s, with it came a bunch of Indian learning — Indian Geography, ideas of astronomy, astrology and mathematics. For a brief period there was a very wholesale Indian culture colonization of China. It was never actually complete since Chinese culture is very strong and very ancient, but all sorts of Indian ideas were grafted onto Chinese culture and that was the first part of the book.

The second part of the book is south and eastwards, the story of Buddhism and Hinduism heading through the maritime silk route. Particularly the Pallava’s from Bay of Bengal to Java, Indonesia via Vietnam. The third part of the story is on Indian mathematics and astronomy heading west-wards.”

Talk to him about his fascination with photography, and the author says that it goes well with his work, and allows him to see the history that he has read and written about. It a very satisfactory thing to have a record of travelling. The first thing I do when I arrive at an amazing temple or site, is to photograph it. In a sense it helps you focus. Obviously, the photographs are a wonderful thing in themselves if you get them right.”

The author, who has been mostly using mobile phones to photograph, recalls that when he recently met his friend, Don McCullin, considered Britain’s greatest living photographer, he too was bowled over by the results.

Just like the current one, even his last exhibition, ‘Historian’s Eye’ boasted of black & white photographs. Ask him why he prefers that over colour, and the author asserts, “Some of the works that I most admire are from Bill Bryant, Cartier-Bresson, Don McCullin and Sebastian Salgago. These are photographers who have always shown how black to white could be a much stronger medium than color in the hands of a real master. I think it reduces and it adds to the strangeness. Also, it reduces familiarity. If you can get it right, it makes for much more powerful and moody images. It emphasizes signal, patterns and form.”

This author of ‘City of Djinns’ — a love letter to Delhi, who made an entire generation rediscover the country with works like ‘In the Age of Kali’ ‘Nine Lives’ is not really missing writing in that genre. “I still do long magazine pieces. However, history is my real love in which I try to channel all my love for archaeology and art history. It is much more difficult to write about early cities. After all, we are trying to rebuild entire civilizations from a few scripts, archaeological digs and records of a few Chinese pilgrims.

For someone who has written extensively on Afghanistan, it is hard not to ask him about his take on the situation there now. “A tragedy and completely avoidable situation. There was a folly on the part of the US to withdraw like that. Such a major setback for everyone. Obviously, first and foremost for the Afghans, but also a major setback for America, Britain, Australia and India. India has lost a lot of influence in that region. The only people who really win from this I think are the Chinese. Obviously, the Pakistanis have been triumphant. I think the real winners are China and Pakistan. There were actually very few American troops in Afghanistan and it was not costing huge amounts of money, by American standards. There was no anti war movement like with Vietnam. It could easily have been maintained.”

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‘Two Banks of a River : The Indus in Ladakh’

The online exhibition foregrounds the Indus’ significant impact in Ladakh, which crosses serene riverscapes, from the high Himalayas, through a melange of cultures and traditions, down to its delta in the Sindh and out in the Arabian Sea during its course…Siddhi Jain.

Ladakh is a dream place for most travelers. A series of photographs on the Indus River in the Ladakh region, taken by artist-photographer Isaac Tsetan Gergan, follow the length and breadth of Ladakh, from Nubra to Zanskar and Leh to Kargil telling the story of the river and of the state. On view till July 11 online, the exhibition titled ‘Two Banks of a River — The Indus in Ladakh’ brings to light the traditional practices followed by the locals and how the region’s waterways are imperiled by pollution and commercialisation.

Leh

The online exhibition foregrounds the Indus’ significant impact in Ladakh, which crosses serene riverscapes, from the high Himalayas, through a melange of cultures and traditions, down to its delta in the Sindh and out in the Arabian Sea during its course. Like it has nourished our ancestors, the river continues to bring life to the thousands of villages and communities along its course, says the exhibition about the life-giving river.

Building on how the Indus supports life, livestock and agrarian practices have built Ladakh, it shows how the Ladakhi way of life and everyday systems are sustainable and use resources wisely and in harmony with the environment. “One cannot say the same of today’s booming industries and infrastructure development.”

“Prayers have been offered to the great river, ashes dissolved into its currents. The Indus, like all water bodies, is sacred in these regions. The sacredness ascribed to water made communities use it wisely and deliberately, certainly not wastefully or thoughtlessly.”

The Vancouver-educated artist-photographer shares that the containers of water were prayed over, as they held a significant place in the home and were designed beautifully. “The plastic bucket, while cheaper and perhaps more practical, still pales. Do we carry forward our values related to water, even as we know of its decreasing availability? How can we still build our systems around traditional values connected with water?” says a note on the exhibition.

It adds: “Waterways are being polluted. We have a number of hydro-power projects that have come up too. Rising temperatures and erratic weather patterns, episodes of sudden downpours have increased risks to livelihoods and settlements. There is only so much water; can everybody have an equal share? The changes in the mountains are evident, many times before it is in the plains, owing to its fragility.

“Similarly the changes in climate are seemingly slow but certainly steady and constant. The impacts of Indus being dammed has altered life downstream, even if in small ways, or the flash floods that caused massive loss of life, land, and history. Sewage water seeping into the waterways, to the rise in tourism leaving an unmistakable trail of non-biodegradable waste, we come to make as our way of life. What is in our control and can we be better stewards of the resources we have been given?”

Leh

Reminiscing about a simpler past and reflecting on the present, the artist observes: “Photographing and writing about the Indus, hearing old folk tell their stories or experts giving presentations, I have been moved across emotions and thoughts about water and its central place in Ladakh. Sitting by still brooks to the banks of the raging Suru, I have seen water flow through Ladakh. Laying on the soft grass in a willow’s shade along a rushing stream, hearing the soft water following on the flattened pebbles is not only romantic but is still possible. From my position, while writing, on the other side of the bank are sounds of heavy machinery, earth movers, concrete and iron pillars rising higher, sweat under yellow helmets — a new age coming to the ancient mountains.”

The online exhibition is on view on the website of the India International Centre.

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Shopping tips for photoholics

Today a phone is not just an amenity but a source of showing your interest. Brands have thus instigated numerous phone covers for almost every popular brand these days…writes Puja Gupta.

Photography is a unique hobby that needs some special perception or creativity. There was an era when people used to be all dressed when they had to get their picture clicked at the photo store. While today is the era when we can create a whole new album every day with the pictures captured from the lens of phones. Considering this, every other person is a proud photoholic. If you are also one of them then here is a list by Shivam Soni, Founder and CEO, Beyoung Folks Private Limited, of clothing you must keep in mind before shopping.

What Is The Occasion For?

Well, it’s not just clothes, it’s your choice for an occasion. It is a part of how you make your day special as the more comfortable you are, the more you want to slay in front of the world. So, grab trendy clothes like graphic t-shirts or checkered shirts and show how you are spending your day.

Click a snap in the newly launched Polo T-shirts and show your sporty spirit. Click yourself in the boxers and show how you are spending your home quarantine, or simply get clicked in pajamas to underline your work from home routine.

Want To Show Off Your Precious Phone?

Today a phone is not just an amenity but a source of showing your interest. Brands have thus instigated numerous phone covers for almost every popular brand these days. You can pick chic, cool, sophisticated and sweet mobile covers and go ahead with a mirror selfie. The cover will not just be about your phones protection but will also be a part of your selfie addiction.

If You Love Your Group?

Happy pictures of a group together always turn out to be photogenic. To add a little improvisation to the picture you may shop for Group T-shirts as they are all about showing how much you waited for this hangout and how much you want to live the memories by cherishing the pictures snapped on the other day.

Selfie ANI)

Are You In Love?
Whoof! Some want to keep their love story to themselves while some want to show how madly they are in love. So yes, while going out to shop you may buy yourselves same colour outfits, identical phone covers or also opt for love bands. These little props do huge wonders to your pictures. If none of these fits, you can always opt for couple t-shirts with symbols of love and laughter. Certain brands have a collection solely devoted to those devoted couples. Their range for love birds are something that a couple must show off.

Thinking Of Instagram Reels?

social media

Is Instagram reels your favorite feature these days? Then you should never be short of ideas for making every reel different and unique from one another. For this, you may look out for different locations, situations, dialogues and most importantly different clothing for making it a fine sight for the eye. Instead of the party wear attires that were the need of everyday outings, these comfortable apparels are now being the trend of the season because of the habit of being at home (credits to the lockdown which has locked people in). So, shop for the clothing which will make you the star even when you are at home.

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