Chasing photography.

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Tuesday, November 8, 2011 | 5 photos

My first tryst with photography was thanks to my cousin who at my request bought me a film SLR. Eventually a few years later I asked my mother if she would help me fund a trip to backpack across my country India to chase the monsoons. The DSLR I would eventually use and one lens (I could afford only one) were gifted to me on my birthday and the funds for the trip were borrowed from an uncle. I dint really have a travel itinerary expect that I was to start in the south western tip of country and make my way up in a north easterly direction. It was during that trip that took me across the length and breadth of my country and to Bhutan over a period of 3 months that was when I knew I wanted to be a photographer. The interaction with various people and their cultures made me more sensitive towards the subject.
That idea that folk forms of art are essentially a glimpse into the history of a people who dint have a structured form of recording it dawned on me during a trip to Rajasthan for a folk festival. For me the grace, the beauty and over all merriment of the festival was overshadowed by the thoughts of the marginalization of these artistic historians. While the festival and the organizational body are trying hard to preserve these forms they are being lost across the world and with them a part of history. The photos I am submitting try and capture the grace and anguish of those Indian folk historians.
All that I learn if I receive the scholarship will be aimed at trying to communicate many more such stories through my photographs.