"Singh struck out in his own direction by using color photography, disparaged at the time, rather than black and white. More than a dozen books followed, each focused on different parts of urban and rural India; the images in this show are drawn from them. The documentary-style vision that emerges is neither sugarcoated, nor abject, nor controllingly omniscient."
- Holland Cotter, "Raghubir Singh: Retrospective", New York Times, 26 November 2004.
It's hard to have an impersonal view on photographing India. Many of my western counterparts seem to travel around the country looking for a peculiar Indian abjection - sometimes even a 'beauty as seen in abjection'. I find it a fundamentally western concept. I'm with Raghubhir Singh on this one - beauty as seen in abjection - which suited neither him nor India, hence he created his own Indian style and aesthetic - "a documentary-style which was neither sugarcoated nor abject, nor controllingly omniscient."
On recent trip to Rajasthan, I tried and failed perhaps to channel Raghubhir. The Tata Indica fails as an camera obscura when compared to the ambassador.
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Well atleast I've learnt to fall out of love with western abjection and let the story tell itself.
3 comments:
I've just stumbled across your blog and just had to comment... you're pictures are BEAUTIFUL
hi i love your blog. can you please tell in which hotel the picture with the pool and the hill in the backdrop is taken.
Ramses - It's a placed called Rawla Haweli in Narlai near Udaipur
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