Johny ML

Contemporary Photography as Sighting Vying for Citing

PhotoMail — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 06:32:06 +0000

Sighting is always accidental and definitely at times eagerly waited for. Examples could be taken from two different types of star gazing; one from astronomy and the other from the film world. Crazy fans of both astronomy and film stars do wait for the sighting of their focus of interest and the knowledge about their appearance is limited and vague. In the former’s case precision spotting is possible now with technological advancements but in the latter case the information of a star’s arrival is pretty vague and it is not even necessary that he/she appears in the expected point of entry. In both the cases there is a long and patient waiting. But among the innumerable images captured by the crazy fans or amateur photographers none qualifies as a ‘citable’ image. The citable images are those clicked and distributed selectively or ‘officially’ by the authorities.

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Flâneur’s Notes II, Image is an Artefact

PhotoMail — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 07:22:15 +0000

The lone boot is rather a disturbing image; much pain inducing than the aggressive and cautious posture of the freedom fighters backed up by the Indian Army (definitely Kishore Parekh is on the winning side as he was taken to the combat zone by an Indian army General in his vehicle). A closer look reveals that the boot does not belong to the fighters. They wear rubber slippers and are not in combat fatigue. The image tells something more; the Indian army gives the backup and ammunition to the native freedom fighters but does not fight from the front.

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Flâneur Notes: The Truth of Old Photographs

PhotoMail — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 09:08:15 +0000

The location is Rabindra Bhavan, Mandi House, New Delhi, the seat of three academies (Fine Arts, Music, and Literature). It also has a three storey gallery designed by Habib Rahman, an erstwhile PWD Engineer, and father of noted photographer and activist, Ram Rahman, where hopeful artists come from faraway places to make it big in the art scene.

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Wings Flapping of Migratory Birds in an Anarchist’s Fingers

PhotoMail — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 07:09:34 +0000

In Abul Azad’s visual dictionary the word ‘still life’ is elaborated as follows: the objects related to and resulted by a person’s life and these objects are seen arrayed in a certain fashion as providence would suggest and these objects would remain in the same way as if they were caught in and frozen by time. Their stillness shows that the person who has caused such an arrangement is equally still or methodically careless.

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பேசாத கல்லும், விளையாட்டுப் பொம்மையும்

PhotoMail — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 06:06:29 +0000

கையில் கேமராவுடன் அலையும் சூபியாக மாறிய ராவுத்தரே அபுல். அவரது முன்னோர் எவ்வாறு மக்களிடம் பேசினரோ அவ்வண்ணமே தமிழ் பேசுகிறார். ஆனால், ஆசாத் எந்தவொரு மொழியிலும் பேசவில்லை என்று தான் நான் எண்ணுகிறேன். அவர் புகைப்படங்களின் மொழியினை பேசுகிறார். உலகில் அறியப்பட்ட, மற்றும் அறியப்படாத எந்த மொழியையும் பேசும் ஆற்றல் கொண்ட புன்னகைக்கும் புகைப்படக்கலைஞனே அபுல் கலாம் ஆசாத்.

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Anup Mathew Thomas’ Nurses: Presence and Absence of Nurses

PhotoMail — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 23:16:27 +0000

Anup Mathew Thomas gives a sense of non-commitment as he does not intent to divulge the personal narratives of these nurses. This series, in a sense stands opposite to what Parthiv Shah had done in his path breaking project titled ‘Figures, Facts, Feelings: Direct Diasporic Dialogue’ (2000). In this project, Parthiv had approached around thirty four Indian people who had settled in the UK for more than three decades. He asked them twenty questions pertaining to their lives. The answers were juxtaposed with the images of these people taken by Parthiv in the locations that they liked most in their habitats.

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