A friend mentioned today that “my camera has an interesting perspective.” I was intrigued by that, so I decided to take a look at some of my “art” photos clicked from my mobile phone over the last couple of years. Essentially, photos without human subjects. Where the frame attempts to capture the world in its non-human forms. And yet, frames that—because they are clicked from a human camera—are inevitably human. The “perspective” of my camera is, in oblique ways, my eye’s perspective toward the world. Hidden in these photos is a hint about the way I perceive reality. Or put better, how I see myself spatialised out on the world. There are themes that run across these photos which express my interiority in ways that language is often unable to do.
Shadows intrigue me. They occupy a space between realness and imagination. They are there, and yet they are not. They have no independent existence of their own. They are light blocked. Light that has not made its destination, obstructed by a thing. In doing so, shadows reveal that which light cannot. The underside of something, its impressions on something else. Two things merge in shadows. Such as in my photograph of the Ugrasen Baoli where trees and stone merge to produce an abode. Or on my bedroom wall where the tree hiding behind my window peeps into the room through its shadow. Shadows allow us to transplant things. The branches of the tree on parched floor. Allowing one to observe the intricate patterns of creation.
Bareness soothes me. The lone tree bark in Lodhi Garden today stood out to me. It had been stripped of all foliage, deprived of the luxury of providing shade to others, unavailable for love making. Yet, it stood there alone, quiet. A majestic eagle perched on its bare branches. There is something similar about clear skies. Bare, deep blueness. A singular shadow of a moon and birds flying in patterns. In another photo, the sky enclosed in a square by unornamented, geometric walls. In another, the receding horizon as captured from an airplane. My camera lens angles upwards, toward the sky, in a bid to fly. To be one with the open bare sky without obstruction. To be alone as the leafless tree or the majestic eagle, surrounded only by a distant moon.
Light inspires me, but only dim light, light that does not announce itself violently. Therefore, the moon hidden beneath the clouds, or the moon amidst pitch black space, or the yellow lamp in darkness. Night is the time of the gods. Day is for illusions. The world runs on lightly illusion. Light makes light of the world. In the silence and stillness of night, another reality shows its face. That which needs discovery without the torchlight. I have stopped using a nightlight while sleeping; I prefer sleeping in complete darkness. I realise that my eyes are capable of seeing in complete darkness. For there is always light. We must attune ourselves to this light. The moon’s quiet light in my photographs represent a desire to illuminate without announcement. To illuminate quietly, with care and warmth. To diminish oneself and let the darkness do its job. To be one with the night.
Finally, time. The dilapidated wall in the old academic block. My school building. The half-broken house of my neighbours across the street. The old stone of monuments. All remnants and witnesses of history. History not in a grand fashion, but history as time that once was. Sitting beside the wall in OAB, I wondered how many young students had sat beside the same wall and dreamed of their futures. The broken house across the street reminds me of a forgotten friendship. How many times had I been in their courtyard, rehearsing old games and inventing new ones. The majestic school building reminded of a time when I ran across its corridors with confidence, as if the entire building was my own. And now, I was a stranger. Stranger to its new inhabitants. Their permanence through time exposes my own ephemerality. The monument’s broken walls have seen emperors and lovers. And now I sit here with my pretentious intellect. There will be others, and yet in this moment, the ruin and I share a time. That time is our own. The photograph is an approximation of this time lived together.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6LjJap75IyE3NfWhv4dZx7?si=tPeCXNGQQdWufUBkwwV-1g